Astro::ADS modules
------------------  

What is it?
-----------

The Astro::ADS module is an objected orientated Perl interface to the
Astrophysics Data System (ADS) abstract service. The ADS is a NASA-funded
project whose main resource is an Abstract Service, which includes four sets 
of abstracts: 1) astronomy and astrophysics, containing 719,449 abstracts; 
2) instrumentation, containing 608,834 abstracts; 3) physics and geophysics,
containing 1,079,814 abstracts; and 4) Los Alamos preprint server, containing
4,104 abstracts. Each dataset can be searched by author, object name (astronomy
only), title, or abstract text words. 

As this is an early release of the module only minimal query functionality is
included, however all the backend interaction with the ADS server is in place
and additional functionality (e.g. adding weights and scoring) should be along
shortly. I'm currently following the "relase early, release often" strategy.

Comments and patches are always welcome.

Why do it?
----------

There is already a Perl interface to the ADS in existance written by 
Alberto Accomazzi <aaccomazzi@cfa.harvard.edu>, however it was written
for Perl 4, isn't object orientated and hasn't been updated in some
time. See http://ads.harvard.edu/www/adswww-lib/adswww-0.8.1.html for
details of this package.

Due to the requirements of the eSTAR project for which this module was 
written I needed a modern object-orientated interface I could use for
data mining the ADS. This module was the result.

Requirements
------------

The module requires the libwww-perl-5.60 package written by Gisle Aas
<gisle@ActiveState.com> v5.53 or above. This package can be obtained
via CPAN at http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=libwww-perl

Also required is the Net::Domain module, v2.13 or above, by Graham
Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>. This module has been included in the base
distribution since Perl 5.7.2, but otherwise can be downloaded from
CPAN as part of the libnet package, see
http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=libnet

Finally the package requires Pod::Usage, v1.14 or above, by Brad Appleton 
<bradapp@enteract.com>. Again this has been included in the base distribution
since Perl 5.6.1, but can be downloaded seperately from CPAN as part of the
PodParser package, see http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=PodParser

Provides
--------

The package provides the following classes

    Astro::ADS::Query
    Astro::ADS::Result
    Astro::ADS::Result::Paper
    
along with the following scripts which take advantage of the class 
functionality

    adsquery

Where can I get it?
-------------------

The package is availabe from CPAN <http://www.cpan.org/> and from
http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/people/aa/pages/computing/estar.html

Installation
------------

Installation is automated using the ExtUtils::MakeMaker library

     % perl Makefile.PL
     % make
     % make test
     % make install

Authors
-------

The core functionality of the module was written by Alasdair Allan
<aa@astro.ex.ac.uk>, of the University of Exeter Astrophysics Group
(http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/) as part of his work for the eSTAR project.

Additional functionality and the user space scripts were written by
Tim Jenness <timj@jach.hawaii.edu> of the Joint Astronomy Centre (JAC) 
in Hawaii.

Terms and Conditions
--------------------

Use of this library implies acceptance of the terms and conditions of use
of the Astrophysical Data Service (ADS) Abstract Service, for full details
see http://adswww.harvard.edu/use.html

License
-------
This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
Place,Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA
