NAME
    pwget - Perl Web URL fetch program

SYNOPSIS
        pwget http://example.com/ [URL ...]
        pwget --config $HOME/config/pwget.conf --tag linux --tag emacs ..
        pwget --verbose --overwrite http://example.com/
        pwget --verbose --overwrite --Output ~/dir/ http://example.com/
        pwget --new --overwrite http://example.com/package-1.1.tar.gz

DESCRIPTION
    Automate periodic downloads of files and packages.

    If you retrieve latest versions of certain program blocks periodically,
    this is the Perl script for you. Run from cron job or once a week to
    upload newest versions of files around the net. Note:

  Wget and this program
    At this point you may wonder, where would you need this perl program
    when wget(1) C-program has been the standard for ages. Well, 1) Perl is
    cross platform and more easily extendable 2) You can record file
    download criteria to a configuration file and use perl regular
    epxressions to select downloads 3) the program can anlyze web-pages and
    "search" for the download only links as instructed 4) last but not
    least, it can track newest packages whose name has changed since last
    downlaod. There are heuristics to determine the newest file or package
    according to file name skeleton defined in configuration.

    This program does not replace pwget(1) because it does not offer as many
    options as wget, like recursive downloads and date comparing. Use wget
    for ad hoc downloads and this utility for files that change (new
    releases of archives) or which you monitor periodically.

  Short introduction
    This small utility makes it possible to keep a list of URLs in a
    configuration file and periodically retrieve those pages or files with
    simple commands. This utility is best suited for small batch jobs to
    download e.g. most recent versions of software files. If you use an URL
    that is already on disk, be sure to supply option --overwrite to allow
    overwriting existing files.

    While you can run this program from command line to retrieve individual
    files, program has been designed to use separate configuration file via
    --config option. In the configuration file you can control the
    downloading with separate directives like "save:" which tells to save
    the file under different name. The simplest way to retrieve the latest
    version of apackage from a FTP site is:

        pwget --new --overwite --verbose \
           http://www.example.com/package-1.00.tar.gz

    Do not worry about the filename "package-1.00.tar.gz". The latest
    version, say, "package-3.08.tar.gz" will be retrieved. The option --new
    instructs to find newer version than the provided URL.

    If the URL ends to slash, then directory list at the remote machine is
    stored to file:

        !path!000root-file

    The content of this file can be either index.html or the directory
    listing depending on the used http or ftp protocol.

OPTIONS
    -A, --regexp-content REGEXP
        Analyze the content of the file and match REGEXP. Only if the regexp
        matches the file content, then download file. This option will make
        downloads slow, because the file is read into memory as a single
        line and then a match is searched against the content.

        For example to download Emacs lisp file (.el) written by Mr. Foo in
        case insensitive manner:

            pwget -v -r '\.el$' -A "(?i)Author: Mr. Foo" \
              http://www.emacswiki.org/elisp/index.html

    -C, --create-paths
        Create paths that do not exist in "lcd:" directives.

        By default, any LCD directive to non-existing directory will
        interrupt program. With this option, local directories are created
        as needed making it possible to re-create the exact structure as it
        is in configuration file.

    -c, --config FILE
        This option can be given multiple times. All configurations are
        read.

        Read URLs from configuration file. If no configuration file is
        given, file pointed by environment variable is read. See
        ENVIRONMENT.

        The configuration file layout is envlained in section CONFIGURATION
        FILE

    --chdir DIRECTORY
        Do a chdir() to DIRECTORY before any URL download starts. This is
        like doing:

            cd DIRECTORY
            pwget http://example.com/index.html

    -d, --debug [LEVEL]
        Turn on debug with positive LEVEL number. Zero means no debug. This
        option turns on --verbose too.

    -e, --extract
        Unpack any files after retrieving them. The command to unpack
        typical archive files are defined in a program. Make sure these
        programs are along path. Win32 users are encouraged to install the
        Cygwin utilities where these programs come standard. Refer to
        section SEE ALSO.

          .tar => tar
          .tgz => tar + gzip
          .gz  => gzip
          .bz2 => bzip2
          .xz  => xz
          .zip => unzip

    -F, --firewall FIREWALL
        Use FIREWALL when accessing files via ftp:// protocol.

    -h, --help
        Print help page in text.

    --help-html
        Print help page in HTML.

    --help-man
        Print help page in Unix manual page format. You want to feed this
        output to c<nroff -man> in order to read it.

        Print help page.

    -m, --mirror SITE
        If URL points to Sourcefoge download area, use mirror SITE for
        downloading. Alternatively the full full URL can include the mirror
        information. And example:

            --mirror kent http://downloads.sourceforge.net/foo/foo-1.0.0.tar.gz

    -n, --new
        Get newest file. This applies to datafiles, which do not have
        extension .asp or .html. When new releases are announced, the
        version number in filename usually tells which is the current one so
        getting hardcoded file with:

            pwget -o -v http://example.com/dir/program-1.3.tar.gz

        is not usually practical from automation point of view. Adding --new
        option to the command line causes double pass: a) the whole
        http://example.com/dir/ is examined for all files and b) files
        matching approximately filename program-1.3.tar.gz are examined,
        heuristically sorted and file with latest version number is
        retrieved.

    --no-lcd
        Ignore "lcd:" directives in configuration file.

        In the configuration file, any "lcd:" directives are obeyed as they
        are seen. But if you do want to retrieve URL to your current
        directory, be sure to supply this option. Otherwise the file will
        end to the directory pointer by "lcd:".

    --no-save
        Ignore "save:" directives in configuration file. If the URLs have
        "save:" options, they are ignored during fetch. You usually want to
        combine --no-lcd with --no-save

    --no-extract
        Ignore "x:" directives in configuration file.

    -O, --output DIR
        Before retrieving any files, chdir to DIR.

    -o, --overwrite
        Allow overwriting existing files when retrieving URLs. Combine this
        with --skip-version if you periodically update files.

    --proxy PROXY
        Use PROXY server for HTTP. (See --Firewall for FTP.). The port
        number is optional in the call:

            --proxy http://example.com.proxy.com
            --proxy example.com.proxy.com:8080

    -p, --prefix PREFIX
        Add PREFIX to all retrieved files.

    -P, --postfix POSTFIX
        Add POSTFIX to all retrieved files.

    -D, --prefix-date
        Add iso8601 ":YYYY-MM-DD" prefix to all retrieved files. This is
        added before possible --prefix-www or --prefix.

    -W, --prefix-www
        Usually the files are stored with the same name as in the URL dir,
        but if you retrieve files that have identical names you can store
        each page separately so that the file name is prefixed by the site
        name.

            http://example.com/page.html    --> example.com::page.html
            http://example2.com/page.html   --> example2.com::page.html

    -r, --regexp REGEXP
        Retrieve file matching at the destination URL site. This is like
        "Connect to the URL and get all files matching REGEXP". Here all
        gzip compressed files are found form HTTP server directory:

            pwget -v -r "\.gz" http://example.com/archive/

        Caveat: currently works only for http:// URLs.

    -R, --config-regexp REGEXP
        Retrieve URLs matching REGEXP from configuration file. This cancels
        --tag options in the command line.

    -s, --selftest
        Run some internal tests. For maintainer or developer only.

    --sleep SECONDS
        Sleep SECONDS before next URL request. When using regexp based
        downlaods that may return many hits, some sites disallow successive
        requests in within short period of time. This options makes program
        sleep for number of SECONDS between retrievals to overcome 'Service
        unavailable'.

    --stdout
        Retrieve URL and write to stdout.

    --skip-version
        Do not download files that have version number and which already
        exists on disk. Suppose you have these files and you use option
        --skip-version:

            package.tar.gz
            file-1.1.tar.gz

        Only file.txt is retrieved, because file-1.1.tar.gz contains version
        number and the file has not changed since last retrieval. The idea
        is, that in every release the number in in distribution increases,
        but there may be distributions which do not contain version number.
        In regular intervals you may want to load those packages again, but
        skip versioned files. In short: This option does not make much sense
        without additional option --new

        If you want to reload versioned file again, add option --overwrite.

    -t, --test, --dry-run
        Run in test mode.

    -T, --tag NAME [NAME] ...
        Search tag NAME from the config file and download only entries
        defined under that tag. Refer to --config FILE option description.
        You can give Multiple --tag switches. Combining this option with
        --regexp does not make sense and the concequencies are undefined.

    -v, --verbose [NUMBER]
        Print verbose messages.

    -V, --version
        Print version information.

EXAMPLES
    Get files from site:

        pwget http://www.example.com/dir/package.tar.gz ..

    Display copyright file for package GNU make from Debian pages:

        pwget --stdout --regexp 'copyright$' http://packages.debian.org/unstable/make

    Get all mailing list archive files that match "gz":

        pwget --regexp gz  http://example.com/mailing-list/archive/download/

    Read a directory and store it to filename YYYY-MM-DD::!dir!000root-file.

        pwget --prefix-date --overwrite --verbose http://www.example.com/dir/

    To update newest version of the package, but only if there is none at
    disk already. The --new option instructs to find newer packages and the
    filename is only used as a skeleton for files to look for:

        pwget --overwrite --skip-version --new --verbose \
            ftp://ftp.example.com/dir/packet-1.23.tar.gz

    To overwrite file and add a date prefix to the file name:

        pwget --prefix-date --overwrite --verbose \
           http://www.example.com/file.pl

        --> YYYY-MM-DD::file.pl

    To add date and WWW site prefix to the filenames:

        pwget --prefix-date --prefix-www --overwrite --verbose \
           http://www.example.com/file.pl

        --> YYYY-MM-DD::www.example.com::file.pl

    Get all updated files under cnfiguration file's tag updates:

        pwget --verbose --overwrite --skip-version --new --tag updates
        pwget -v -o -s -n -T updates

    Get files as they read in the configuration file to the current
    directory, ignoring any "lcd:" and "save:" directives:

        pwget --config $HOME/config/pwget.conf /
            --no-lcd --no-save --overwrite --verbose \
            http://www.example.com/file.pl

    To check configuration file, run the program with non-matching regexp
    and it parses the file and checks the "lcd:" directives on the way:

        pwget -v -r dummy-regexp

        -->

        pwget.DirectiveLcd: LCD [$EUSR/directory ...]
        is not a directory at /users/foo/bin/pwget line 889.

CONFIGURATION FILE
  Comments
    The configuration file is NOT Perl code. Comments start with hash
    character (#).

  Variables
    At this point, variable expansions happen only in lcd:. Do not try to
    use them anywhere else, like in URLs.

    Path variables for lcd: are defined using following notation, spaces are
    not allowed in VALUE part (no directory names with spaces). Variable
    names are case sensitive. Variables substitute environment variabales
    with the same name. Environment variables are immediately available.

        VARIABLE = /home/my/dir         # define variable
        VARIABLE = $dir/some/file       # Use previously defined variable
        FTP      = $HOME/ftp            # Use environment variable

    The right hand can refer to previously defined variables or existing
    environment variables. Repeat, this is not Perl code although it may
    look like one, but just an allowed syntax in the configuration file.
    Notice that there is dollar to the right hand> when variable is
    referred, but no dollar to the left hand side when variable is defined.
    Here is example of a possible configuration file contant. The tags are
    hierarchically ordered without a limit.

    Warning: remember to use different variables names in separate include
    files. All variables are global.

  Include files
    It is possible to include more configuration files with statement

        INCLUDE <path-to-file-name>

    Variable expansions are possible in the file name. There is no limit how
    many or how deep include structure is used. Every file is included only
    once, so it is safe to to have multiple includes to the same file. Every
    include is read, so put the most importat override includes last:

        INCLUDE <etc/pwget.conf>             # Global
        INCLUDE <$HOME/config/pwget.conf>    # HOME overrides it

    A special "THIS" tag means relative path of the current include file,
    which makes it possible to include several files form the same directory
    where a initial include file resides

        # Start of config at /etc/pwget.conf

        # THIS = /etc, current location
        include <THIS/pwget-others.conf>

        # Refers to directory where current user is: the pwd
        include <pwget-others.conf>

        # end

  Configuraton file example
    The configuration file can contain many <directoves:>, where each
    directive end to a colon. The usage of each directory is best explained
    by examining the configuration file below and reading the commentary
    near each directive.

        #   $HOME/config/pwget.conf F- Perl pwget configuration file

        ROOT   = $HOME                      # define variables
        CONF   = $HOME/config
        UPDATE = $ROOT/updates
        DOWNL  = $ROOT/download

        #   Include more configuration files. It is possible to
        #   split a huge file in pieces and have "linux",
        #   "win32", "debian", "emacs" configurations in separate
        #   and manageable files.

        INCLUDE <$CONF/pwget-other.conf>
        INCLUDE <$CONF/pwget-more.conf>

        tag1: local-copies tag1: local      # multiple names to this category

            lcd:  $UPDATE                   # chdir directive

            #  This is show to user with option --verbose
            print: Notice, this site moved YYYY-MM-DD, update your bookmarks

            file://absolute/dir/file-1.23.tar.gz

        tag1: external

          lcd:  $DOWNL

          tag2: external-http

            http://www.example.com/page.html
            http://www.example.com/page.html save:/dir/dir/page.html

          tag2: external-ftp

            ftp://ftp.com/dir/file.txt.gz save:xx-file.txt.gz login:foo pass:passwd x:

            lcd: $HOME/download/package

            ftp://ftp.com/dir/package-1.1.tar.gz new:

          tag2: package-x

            lcd: $DOWNL/package-x

            #  Person announces new files in his homepage, download all
            #  announced files. Unpack everything (x:) and remove any
            #  existing directories (xopt:rm)

            http://example.com/~foo pregexp:\.tar\.gz$ x: xopt:rm

        # End of configuration file pwget.conf

LIST OF DIRECTIVES IN CONFIGURATION FILE
    All the directives must in the same line where the URL is. The programs
    scans lines and determines all options given in line for the URL.
    Directives can be overridden by command line options.

    cnv:CONVERSION
        Currently only conv:text is available.

        Convert downloaded page to text. This option always needs either
        save: or rename:, because only those directives change filename.
        Here is an example:

            http://example.com/dir/file.html cnv:text save:file.txt
            http://example.com/dir/ pregexp:\.html cnv:text rename:s/html/txt/

        A text: shorthand directive can be used instead of cnv:text.

    cregexp:REGEXP
        Download file only if the content matches REGEXP. This is same as
        option --Regexp-content. In this example directory listing Emacs
        lisp packages (.el) are downloaded but only if their content
        indicates that the Author is Mr. Foo:

            http://example.com/index.html cregexp:(?i)author:.*Foo pregexp:\.el$

    lcd:DIRECTORY
        Set local download directory to DIRECTORY (chdir to it). Any
        environment variables are substituted in path name. If this tag is
        found, it replaces setting of --Output. If path is not a directory,
        terminate with error. See also --Create-paths and --no-lcd.

    login:LOGIN-NAME
        Ftp login name. Default value is "anonymous".

    mirror:SITE
        This is relevant to Sourceforge only which does not allow direct
        downloads with links. Visit project's Sourceforge homepage and see
        which mirrors are available for downloading.

        An example:

          http://sourceforge.net/projects/austrumi/files/austrumi/austrumi-1.8.5/austrumi-1.8.5.iso/download new: mirror:kent

    new:
        Get newest file. This variable is reset to the value of --new after
        the line has been processed. Newest means, that an "ls" command is
        run in the ftp, and something equivalent in HTTP "ftp directories",
        and any files that resemble the filename is examined, sorted and
        heurestically determined according to version number of file which
        one is the latest. For example files that have version information
        in YYYYMMDD format will most likely to be retrieved right.

        Time stamps of the files are not checked.

        The only requirement is that filename "must" follow the universal
        version numbering standard:

            FILE-VERSION.extension      # de facto VERSION is defined as [\d.]+

            file-19990101.tar.gz        # ok
            file-1999.0101.tar.gz       # ok
            file-1.2.3.5.tar.gz         # ok

            file1234.txt                # not recognized. Must have "-"
            file-0.23d.tar.gz           # warning, letters are problematic

        Files that have some alphabetic version indicator at the end of
        VERSION may not be handled correctly. Contact the developer and
        inform him about the de facto standard so that files can be
        retrieved more intelligently.

        *NOTE:* In order the new: directive to know what kind of files to
        look for, it needs a file tamplate. You can use a direct link to
        some filename. Here the location "http://www.example.com/downloads"
        is examined and the filename template used is took as
        "file-1.1.tar.gz" to search for files that might be newer, like
        "file-9.1.10.tar.gz":

          http://www.example.com/downloads/file-1.1.tar.gz new:

        If the filename appeard in a named page, use directive file: for
        template. In this case the "download.html" page is examined for
        files looking like "file.*tar.gz" and the latest is searched:

          http://www.example.com/project/download.html file:file-1.1.tar.gz new:

    overwrite: o:
        Same as turning on --overwrite

    page:
        Read web page and apply commands to it. An example: contact the root
        page and save it:

           http://example.com/~foo page: save:foo-homepage.html

        In order to find the correct information from the page, other
        directives are usually supplied to guide the searching.

        1) Adding directive "pregexp:ARCHIVE-REGEXP" matches the A HREF
        links in the page.

        2) Adding directive new: instructs to find newer VERSIONS of the
        file.

        3) Adding directive "file:DOWNLOAD-FILE" tells what template to use
        to construct the downloadable file name. This is needed for the
        "new:" directive.

        4) A directive "vregexp:VERSION-REGEXP" matches the exact location
        in the page from where the version information is extracted. The
        default regexp looks for line that says "The latest version ... is
        ... N.N". The regexp must return submatch 2 for the version number.

        AN EXAMPLE

        Search for newer files from a HTTP directory listing. Examine page
        http://www.example.com/download/dir for model "package-1.1.tar.gz"
        and find a newer file. E.g. "package-4.7.tar.gz" would be
        downloaded.

            http://www.example.com/download/dir/package-1.1.tar.gz new:

        AN EXAMPLE

        Search for newer files from the content of the page. The directive
        file: acts as a model for filenames to pay attention to.

            http://www.example.com/project/download.html new: pregexp:tar.gz file:package-1.1.tar.gz

        AN EXAMPLE

        Use directive rename: to change the filename before soring it on
        disk. Here, the version number is attached to the actila filename:

            file.txt-1.1
            file.txt-1.2

        The directived needed would be as follows; entries have been broken
        to separate lines for legibility:

            http://example.com/files/
            pregexp:\.el-\d
            vregexp:(file.el-([\d.]+))
            file:file.el-1.1
            new:
            rename:s/-[\d.]+//

        This effectively reads: "See if there is new version of something
        that looks like file.el-1.1 and save it under name file.el by
        deleting the extra version number at the end of original filename".

        AN EXAMPLE

        Contact absolute page: at http://www.example.com/package.html and
        search A HREF urls in the page that match pregexp:. In addition, do
        another scan and search the version number in the page from thw
        position that match vregexp: (submatch 2).

        After all the pieces have been found, use template file: to make the
        retrievable file using the version number found from vregexp:. The
        actual download location is combination of page: and A HREF pregexp:
        location.

        The directived needed would be as follows; entries have been broken
        to separate lines for legibility:

            http://www.example.com/~foo/package.html
            page:
            pregexp: package.tar.gz
            vregexp: ((?i)latest.*?version.*?\b([\d][\d.]+).*)
            file: package-1.3.tar.gz
            new:
            x:

        An example of web page where the above would apply:

            <HTML>
            <BODY>

            The latest version of package is <B>2.4.1</B> It can be
            downloaded in several forms:

                <A HREF="download/files/package.tar.gz">Tar file</A>
                <A HREF="download/files/package.zip">ZIP file

            </BODY>
            </HTML>

        For this example, assume that "package.tar.gz" is a symbolic link
        pointing to the latest release file "package-2.4.1.tar.gz". Thus the
        actual download location would have been
        "http://www.example.com/~foo/download/files/package-2.4.1.tar.gz".

        Why not simply download "package.tar.gz"? Because then the program
        can't decide if the version at the page is newer than one stored on
        disk from the previous download. With version numbers in the file
        names, the comparison is possible.

    page:find
        FIXME: This opton is obsolete. do not use.

        THIS IS FOR HTTP only. Use Use directive regexp: for FTP protocls.

        This is a more general instruction than the page: and vregexp:
        explained above.

        Instruct to download every URL on HTML page matching pregexp:RE. In
        typical situation the page maintainer lists his software in the
        development page. This example would download every tar.gz file in
        the page. Note, that the REGEXP is matched against the A HREF link
        content, not the actual text that is displayed on the page:

            http://www.example.com/index.html page:find pregexp:\.tar.gz$

        You can also use additional regexp-no: directive if you want to
        exclude files after the pregexp: has matched a link.

            http://www.example.com/index.html page:find pregexp:\.tar.gz$ regexp-no:desktop

    pass:PASSWORD
        For FTP logins. Default value is "nobody@example.com".

    pregexp:RE
        Search A HREF links in page matching a regular expression. The
        regular expression must be a single word with no whitespace. This is
        incorrect:

            pregexp:(this regexp )

        It must be written as:

            pregexp:(this\s+regexp\s)

    print:MESSAGE
        Print associated message to user requesting matching tag name. This
        directive must in separate line inside tag.

            tag1: linux

              print: this download site moved 2002-02-02, check your bookmarks.
              http://new.site.com/dir/file-1.1.tar.gz new:

        The "print:" directive for tag is shown only if user turns on
        --verbose mode:

            pwget -v -T linux

    rename:PERL-CODE
        Rename each file using PERL-CODE. The PERL-CODE must be full perl
        program with no spaces anywhere. Following variables are available
        during the eval() of code:

            $ARG = current file name
            $url = complete url for the file
            The code must return $ARG which is used for file name

        For example, if page contains links to .html files that are in fact
        text files, following statement would change the file extensions:

            http://example.com/dir/ page:find pregexp:\.html rename:s/html/txt/

        You can also call function "MonthToNumber($string)" if the filename
        contains written month name, like <2005-February.mbox>.The function
        will convert the name into number. Many mailing list archives can be
        downloaded cleanly this way.

            #  This will download SA-Exim Mailing list archives:
            http://lists.merlins.org/archives/sa-exim/ pregexp:\.txt$ rename:$ARG=MonthToNumber($ARG)

        Here is a more complicated example:

            http://www.contactor.se/~dast/svnusers/mbox.cgi pregexp:mbox.*\d$ rename:my($y,$m)=($url=~/year=(\d+).*month=(\d+)/);$ARG="$y-$m.mbox"

        Let's break that one apart. You may spend some time with this
        example since the possiblilities are limitless.

            1. Connect to page
               http://www.contactor.se/~dast/svnusers/mbox.cgi

            2. Search page for URLs matching regexp 'mbox.*\d$'. A
               found link could match hrefs like this:
               http://svn.haxx.se/users/mbox.cgi?year=2004&month=12

            3. The found link is put to $ARG (same as $_), which can be used
               to extract suitable mailbox name with a perl code that is
               evaluated. The resulting name must apear in $ARG. Thus the code
               effectively extract two items from the link to form a mailbox
               name:

                my ($y, $m) = ( $url =~ /year=(\d+).*month=(\d+)/ )
                $ARG = "$y-$m.mbox"

                => 2004-12.mbox

        Just remember, that the perl code that follows "rename:" directive
        must must not contain any spaces. It all must be readable as one
        string.

    regexp:REGEXP
        Get all files in ftp directory matching regexp. Directive save: is
        ignored.

    regexp-no:REGEXP
        After the "regexp:" directive has matched, exclude files that match
        directive regexp-no:

    Regexp:REGEXP
        This option is for interactive use. Retrieve all files from HTTP or
        FTP site which match REGEXP.

    save:LOCAL-FILE-NAME
        Save file under this name to local disk.

    tagN:NAME
        Downloads can be grouped under "tagN" so that e.g. option --tag1
        would start downloading files from that point on until next "tag1"
        is found. There are currently unlimited number of tag levels: tag1,
        tag2 and tag3, so that you can arrange your downlods hierarchially
        in the configuration file. For example to download all Linux files
        rhat you monitor, you would give option --tag linux. To download
        only the NT Emacs latest binary, you would give option --tag
        emacs-nt. Notice that you do not give the "level" in the option,
        program will find it out from the configuration file after the tag
        name matches.

        The downloading stops at next tag of the "same level". That is, tag2
        stops only at next tag2, or when upper level tag is found (tag1) or
        or until end of file.

            tag1: linux             # All Linux downlods under this category

                tag2: sunsite    tag2: another-name-for-this-spot

                #   List of files to download from here

                tag2: ftp.funet.fi

                #   List of files to download from here

            tag1: emacs-binary

                tag2: emacs-nt

                tag2: xemacs-nt

                tag2: emacs

                tag2: xemacs

    x:  Extract (unpack) file after download. See also option --unpack and
        --no-extract The archive file, say .tar.gz will be extracted the
        file in current download location. (see directive lcd:)

        The unpack procedure checks the contents of the archive to see if
        the package is correctly formed. The de facto archive format is

            package-N.NN.tar.gz

        In the archive, all files are supposed to be stored under the proper
        subdirectory with version information:

            package-N.NN/doc/README
            package-N.NN/doc/INSTALL
            package-N.NN/src/Makefile
            package-N.NN/src/some-code.java

        "IMPORTANT:" If the archive does not have a subdirectory for all
        files, a subdirectory is created and all items are unpacked under
        it. The default subdirectory name in constructed from the archive
        name with currect date stamp in format:

            package-YYYY.MMDD

        If the archive name contains something that looks like a version
        number, the created directory will be constructed from it, instead
        of current date.

            package-1.43.tar.gz    =>  package-1.43

    xx: Like directive x: but extract the archive "as is", without checking
        content of the archive. If you know that it is ok for the archive
        not to include any subdirectories, use this option to suppress
        creation of an artificial root package-YYYY.MMDD.

    xopt:rm
        This options tells to remove any previous unpack directory.

        Sometimes the files in the archive are all read-only and unpacking
        the archive second time, after some period of time, would display

            tar: package-3.9.5/.cvsignore: Could not create file:
            Permission denied

            tar: package-3.9.5/BUGS: Could not create file:
            Permission denied

        This is not a serious error, because the archive was already on disk
        and tar did not overwrite previous files. It might be good to inform
        the archive maintainer, that the files have wrong permissions. It is
        customary to expect that distributed packages have writable flag set
        for all files.

ERRORS
    Here is list of possible error messages and how to deal with them.
    Turning on --debug will help to understand how program has interpreted
    the configuration file or command line options. Pay close attention to
    the generated output, because it may reveal that a regexp for a site is
    too lose or too tight.

    ERROR {URL-HERE} Bad file descriptor
        This is "file not found error". You have written the filename
        incorrectly. Double check the configuration file's line.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
    "Sourceforge note": To download archive files from Sourceforge requires
    some trickery because of the redirections and load balancers the site
    uses. The Sourceforge page have also undergone many changes during their
    existence. Due to these changes there exists an ugly hack in the program
    to use wget(1) to get certain information from the site. This could have
    been implemented in pure Perl, but as of now the developer hasn't had
    time to remove the wget(1) dependency. No doubt, this is an ironic
    situation to use wget(1). You you have Perl skills, go ahead and look at
    UrlHttGet(). UrlHttGetWget() and sen patches.

    The program was initially designed to read options from one line. It is
    unfortunately not possible to change the program to read configuration
    file directives from multiple lines, e.g. by using backslashes (\) to
    indicate contuatinued line.

ENVIRONMENT
    Variable "PWGET_CFG" can point to the root configuration file. The
    configuration file is read at startup if it exists.

        export PWGET_CFG=$HOME/conf/pwget.conf     # /bin/hash syntax
        setenv PWGET_CFG $HOME/conf/pwget.conf     # /bin/csh syntax

EXIT STATUS
    Not defined.

DEPENDENCIES
    External utilities:

        wget(1)   only needed for Sourceforge.net downloads
                  see BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

    Non-core Perl modules from CPAN:

        LWP::UserAgent
        Net::FTP

    The following modules are loaded in run-time only if directive cnv:text
    is used. Otherwise these modules are not loaded:

        HTML::Parse
        HTML::TextFormat
        HTML::FormatText

    This module is loaded in run-time only if HTTPS scheme is used:

        Crypt::SSLeay

SEE ALSO
    lwp-download(1) lwp-mirror(1) lwp-request(1) lwp-rget(1) wget(1)

AUTHOR
    Jari Aalto

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
    Copyright (C) 1996-2016 Jari Aalto

    This program is free software; you can redistribute and/or modify
    program under the terms of GNU General Public license either version 2
    of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

