The Code

Type the following code into your preferred plain-text editor—be it Notepad, TextEdit, or a command-line editor like vi or Emacs—and save it to a file named googly.pl. Remember to replace insert key here with your Google API key, as explained in "Using Your Google API Key" earlier in this chapter.

TIP

In addition to the Google API Developer's Kit, you'll need the SOAP::Lite Perl module installed before running this hack.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
# googly.pl
# A typical Google Web API Perl script.
# Usage: perl googly.pl <query>
     
# Your Google API developer's key.
my $google_key='insert key here';
     
# Location of the GoogleSearch WSDL file.
my $google_wdsl = "./GoogleSearch.wsdl";
     
use strict;
     
# Use the SOAP::Lite Perl module.
use SOAP::Lite;
     
# Take the query from the command line.
my $query = shift @ARGV or die "Usage: perl googly.pl <query>\n";
     
# Create a new SOAP::Lite instance, feeding it GoogleSearch.wsdl.
my $google_search = SOAP::Lite->service("file:$google_wdsl");
     
# Query Google.
my $results = $google_search -> 
    doGoogleSearch(
      $google_key, $query, 0, 10, "false", "",  "false",
      "", "latin1", "latin1"
    );
     
# No results?
@{$results->{resultElements}} or exit;
     
# Loop through the results.
foreach my $result (@{$results->{resultElements}}) {
 # Print out the main bits of each result
 print
  join "\n",  
  $result->Program Google in Perl || "no title",
  $result->{URL},
  $result->{snippet} || 'no snippet',
  "\n";
}