NAME¶
Weather::Com::Base - Perl extension for getting weather information from
weather.com
SYNOPSIS¶
use Data::Dumper;
use Weather::Com::Base;
# define parameters for weather search
my %params = (
'current' => 1,
'forecast' => 3,
'links' => 1,
'units' => 's',
'proxy' => 'http://proxy.sonstwo.de',
'timeout' => 250,
'debug' => 1,
'partner_id' => 'somepartnerid',
'license' => '12345678',
);
# instantiate a new weather.com object
my $weather_com = Weather::Com::Base->new(%params);
# search for locations called 'Heidelberg'
my $locations = $weather_com->search('Heidelberg')
or die "No location found!\n";
# and then get the weather for each location found
foreach (keys %{$locations}) {
my $weather = $weather_com->get_weather($_);
print Dumper($weather);
}
DESCRIPTION¶
Weather::Com::Base is a Perl module that provides low level OO interface
to gather all weather information that is provided by
weather.com.
This module should not be used directly because of the business rules applying
if one want's to use the
weather.com's
xoap interface. These
business rules enforce you to implement several caching rules.
Therefore, if you want to use a low level interface, please use
Weather::Com::Cached instead. It has the same interface as this module
but it implements all caching rules of
weather.com.
EXPORT
None by default. But there are a few static methods for conversion purposes you
may wanna use:
- * celsius2fahrenheit(celsius)
- Takes the temperature in celsius and returns the temperature in fahrenheit
(as an integer value).
- * fahrenheit2celsius(fahrenheit)
- Takes the temperature in fahrenheit and returns the temperature in celius
(as an integer value).
- * convert_winddirection(direction)
- Takes a wind mnemonic ("N", "WNW", etc.) or a long
name of a wind direction ("North Northeast") and returns the
other format.
The long names are only understood if used as follows:
"North"
"North Northwest"
"Northwest"
"West Northwest"
"West"
"West Southwest"
"Southwest"
"South Southwest"
"South"
"South Southeast"
"Southeast"
"East Southeast"
"East"
"East Northeast"
"Northeast"
"North Northeast"
"Variable"
CONSTRUCTOR¶
new(hash or hashref)
The constructor takes a hash or a hashref containing a bunch of parameters used
to configure your weather search. None of these paramters is mandatory. As
there are reasonable defaults for any of them, you need only to provide those
parameters where you whish to go with non-default values.
The parameters in detail:
- current => 0 | 1
- This parameter defines whether to fetch the current conditions of a
location or not.
Defaults to 0 (false).
- forecast => 0 | 1 .. 10
- This parameter defines whether to fetch a weather forecast or not.
If set to 0 (false) no forecast is read, if set to a value between 1 and 10
a forecast for the number of days is requested. If set to any other value,
this is interpreted as 0!
Defaults to 0 (false).
- links => 0 | 1
- This parameter specifies whether to load some http links from
weather.com also or not.
- units => s | m
- This parameter defines whether to fetch information in metric (m) or US
(s) format.
Defaults to 'm'.
- proxy => 'none' | 'http://some.proxy.de:8080'
- Usually no proxy is used by the LWP::UserAgent module used to communicate
with weather.com. If you want to use an HTTP proxy you can specify
one here.
- proxy_user => undef | 'myuser'
- If specified, this parameter is provided to the proxy for authentication
purposes.
Defaults to undef.
- proxy_pass => undef | 'mypassword'
- If specified, this parameter is provided to the proxy for authentication
purposes.
Defaults to undef.
- timeout => some integer (in seconds)
- The timeout for LWP::UserAgent to get an HTTP request done usually
is set to 180s. If you need a longer timeout or for some reasons a shorter
one you can set this here.
Defaults to 180 seconds.
- debug => 0 | 1
- Set debugging on/off.
Defaults to 0 (off).
- partner_id => 'somepartnerid'
- To be allowed to fetch weather information from weather.com you
need to register (free of charge) to get a so called Partner Id and
a License Key.
- license => 'somelicensekey'
- See partner_id.
METHODS¶
search(place to search)
Searches for all known locations matching the provided search string.
At
weather.com you have to request weather data for a specific location.
Therefor you first have to find the location id for the location you are
looking for.
weather.com provides two possibilities to search:
- 1. by name
- You may search for a location by name, e.g. "Heidelberg",
"Heidelberg, Germany", "New York, NY", etc.
- 2. by postal code
- You may search for a location by the postal code.
If the search causes an error, this methods dies with a (hopefully) helpful
error message.
If the search returns no matches, 0 is returned.
Else, the method returns a hashref containing all locations found. The hashref
looks as follows if you search for
Heidelberg:
$HASHREF = {
'GMXX0053' => 'Heidelberg, Germany',
'USKY0990' => 'Heidelberg, KY',
'USMS0154' => 'Heidelberg, MS'
};
The keys of the hash are the location ids as used within
weather.com.
This keys have to be used for fetching the weather information of one
location.
get_weather(location id)
This method fetches all weather information as defined by the object attributes
you may have modified while instantiating the weather object.
If an error occurs while fetching weather information, this method dies setting
$@ to a meaningfull error message.
The following hashref shows the maximum of data that can be fetched from
weather.com. The parts of the hashref are explained afterwards.
$HASHREF = {
'head' => {
'ur' => 'mm',
'ud' => 'km',
'us' => 'km/h',
'form' => 'MEDIUM',
'up' => 'mb',
'locale' => 'en_US',
'ut' => 'C'
},
'loc' => {
'suns' => '8:40 PM',
'zone' => '2',
'lat' => '49.41',
'tm' => '3:48 PM',
'sunr' => '6:18 AM',
'dnam' => 'Heidelberg, Germany',
'id' => 'GMXX0053',
'lon' => '8.68'
},
'cc' => {
'icon' => '28',
'flik' => '21',
'obst' => 'Mannhein, Germany',
'lsup' => '8/16/04 3:20 PM Local Time',
'tmp' => '21',
'hmid' => '78',
'wind' => {
'gust' => 'N/A',
'd' => '170',
's' => '11',
't' => 'S'
},
'bar' => {
'r' => '1,010.8',
'd' => 'steady'
},
'dewp' => '17',
'uv' => {
't' => 'Moderate',
'i' => '3'
},
'vis' => '10.0',
't' => 'Mostly Cloudy'
},
'dayf' => {
'lsup' => '8/16/04 12:17 PM Local Time',
'day' => [
{
'hi' => '27',
'suns' => '8:40 PM',
'dt' => 'Aug 16',
'part' => [
{
'hmid' => '57',
'wind' => {
'gust' => 'N/A',
'd' => '204',
's' => '16',
't' => 'SSW'
},
'icon' => '28',
'p' => 'd',
'ppcp' => '20',
't' => 'Mostly Cloudy'
},
{
'hmid' => '87',
'wind' => {
'gust' => 'N/A',
'd' => '215',
's' => '13',
't' => 'SW'
},
'icon' => '11',
'p' => 'n',
'ppcp' => '60',
't' => 'Showers'
}
],
'd' => '0',
'sunr' => '6:18 AM',
'low' => '16',
't' => 'Monday'
},
... next day ...,
... and so on ...,
]
},
'lnks' => {
'link' => [
{
'l' => 'http://www.weather.com/outlook/health/allergies/USMS0154?par=xoap',
'pos' => '1',
't' => 'Pollen Reports'
},
{
'l' => 'http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/flights/citywx/USMS0154?par=xoap',
'pos' => '2',
't' => 'Airport Delays'
},
{
'l' => 'http://www.weather.com/outlook/events/special/result/USMS0154?when=thisweek&par=xoap',
'pos' => '3',
't' => 'Special Events'
},
{
'l' => 'http://www.weather.com/services/desktop.html?par=xoap',
'pos' => '4',
't' => 'Download Desktop Weather'
}
],
'type' => 'prmo'
},
'ver' => '2.0'
};
Header Information Block
The hashref
head contains unit of measure definitions for the whole
dataset. Usually they are either all metric or all us.
- locale
- Should always be en_US. Up to now I have not found any possiblity
to get other locales.
- ut (unit of temperature)
- Could be C for Celsius or F for Fahrenheit.
- us (unit of speed)
- Could be km/h or mph.
- ud (unit of distance)
- Could be km or mi.
- ur (unit of precipitation)
- Could be mb (millibar) or in.
- up (unit of pressure)
- Could be mb or in for in Hg.
- format (textformat)
- Could be SHORT, MEDIUM or LONG.
Location Information Block
The hashref
loc contains some information about the location that does
not change very much each hour or day.
- id (location id)
- This is the location id as used to get the weather for the location.
- dnam (descriptive name)
- This is a name describing the location, e.g. Heidelberg,
Germany.
- tm (time)
- This is the current local time of the location (if not using cached data).
Time is always presented like 8:45 AM or 11:33 PM.
- zone (timezone)
- This is the timezone. It is presented as time offset from GMT.
- suns (time of sunset)
- sunr (time of sunrise)
- lat (latitude)
- The latitude is presented as 2 digit decimal.
- lon (longitude)
- The longitude is presented as 2 digit decimal.
Current Conditions Block
The hashref
cc contains information about the current conditions.
- icon
- The SDK from weather.com contains a set of weather icons. These
icons have filenames like 28.png. This element is this icon
number.
- flik (windchill)
- This is the temperature considering the windchill factor.
- obst (observatory)
- The observatory that reported the weather data.
- lsup (last updated)
- Date and time when the weather data has been reported. Format is
8/16/04 6:10 AM EDT. In some cases (e.g. for Heidelberg in Germany)
there may be no official timezone identifier but the keyword Local
or Local Time.
- tmp (temperature)
- hmid (humidity)
- wind
- gust
- Maximum gust speed.
- d
- Wind direction in degrees.
- t
- Text description of direction.
- s
- Wind speed
- bar (air pressure)
- r (pressure)
- Decimal current pressure.
- d (description)
- Text description of raise or fall of pressure.
- dewp
- Integer dew point.
- uv (uv index data)
- i
- Integer index value.
- t
- Text description of value.
- vis (decimal visibility)
- t
- Text description of condition.
Forecasts
Up to 10 days of forecasts can be found in the hashref
dayf.
- lsup (last updated)
- self explanatory
- day
- day contains either a hash containing the forecast for one day or
it contains an an array of hashes, one for each day.
- dt (date)
- The date of the forecasted day. Only name of month and day, e.g. Aug
16.
- d (number of the day)
- t (name of the day)
- e.g. Monday
- hi (highest temperature)
- low (lowest temperature)
- suns (time of sunset)
- sunr (time of sunrise)
- part (block of day part data)
- There are always to blocks of day part data. One for the the night and one
for the day.
- hmid (humidity)
- wind (see current conditions block)
- icon (see current conditions block)
- p (part of day)
- Maybe d for day or n for night.
- ppcp (percent chance of precipitation)
- t (description of conditions)
Links
The hashref
lnks contains some links to other weather information that
may be interesting for the chosen location. This will not be explained in
further detail here. Just play around with the sample...
SEE ALSO¶
See also Weather::Com::Cached for the cached version of the low level API.
AUTHOR¶
Thomas Schnuecker, <thomas@schnuecker.de>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE¶
Copyright (C) 2004-2007 by Thomas Schnuecker
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.
The data provided by
weather.com and made accessible by this OO interface
can be used for free under special terms. Please have a look at the
application programming guide of
weather.com
(
http://www.weather.com/services/xmloap.html)!