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.\" ========================================================================
.\"
.IX Title "Finger 3pm"
.TH Finger 3pm "2023-05-17" "perl v5.36.0" "User Contributed Perl Documentation"
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.SH "NAME"
Net::Finger \- a Perl implementation of a finger client.
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.IX Header "SYNOPSIS"
.Vb 1
\&  use Net::Finger;
\&
\&  # You can put the response in a scalar...
\&  $response = finger(\*(Aqcorbeau@execpc.com\*(Aq);
\&  unless ($response) {
\&      warn "Finger problem: $Net::Finger::error";
\&  }
\&
\&  # ...or an array.
\&  @lines = finger(\*(Aqcorbeau@execpc.com\*(Aq, 1);
.Ve
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.IX Header "DESCRIPTION"
Net::Finger is a simple, straightforward implementation of a finger client
in Perl \*(-- so simple, in fact, that writing this documentation is almost
unnecessary.
.PP
This module has one automatically exported function, appropriately
entitled \f(CW\*(C`finger()\*(C'\fR. It takes two arguments:
.IP "\(bu" 4
A username or email address to finger. (Yes, it does support the
vaguely deprecated \*(L"user@host@host\*(R" syntax.) If you need to use a port
other than the default finger port (79), you can specify it like so:
\&\*(L"username@hostname:port\*(R".
.IP "\(bu" 4
(Optional) A boolean value for verbosity. True == verbose output. If
you don't give it a value, it defaults to false. Actually, whether
this output will differ from the non-verbose version at all is up to
the finger server.
.PP
\&\f(CW\*(C`finger()\*(C'\fR is context-sensitive. If it's used in a scalar context, it
will return the server's response in one large string. If it's used in
an array context, it will return the response as a list, line by
line. If an error of some sort occurs, it returns undef and puts a
string describing the error into the package global variable
\&\f(CW$Net::Finger::error\fR. If you'd like to see some excessively verbose
output describing every step \f(CW\*(C`finger()\*(C'\fR takes while talking to the
other server, put a true value in the variable \f(CW$Net::Finger::debug\fR.
.PP
Here's a sample program that implements a very tiny, stripped-down
\&\fBfinger\fR\|(1):
.PP
.Vb 1
\&    #!/usr/bin/perl \-w
\&
\&    use Net::Finger;
\&    use Getopt::Std;
\&    use vars qw($opt_l);
\&
\&    getopts(\*(Aql\*(Aq);
\&    $x = finger($ARGV[0], $opt_l);
\&
\&    if ($x) {
\&        print $x;
\&    } else {
\&        warn "$0: error: $Net::Finger::error\en";
\&    }
.Ve
.SH "BUGS"
.IX Header "BUGS"
.IP "\(bu" 4
Doesn't yet do non-blocking requests. (\s-1FITNR.\s0 Really.)
.IP "\(bu" 4
Doesn't do local requests unless there's a finger server running on localhost.
.IP "\(bu" 4
Contrary to the name's implications, this module involves no teledildonics.
.SH "AUTHOR"
.IX Header "AUTHOR"
Dennis Taylor, <corbeau@execpc.com>
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IX Header "SEE ALSO"
\&\fBperl\fR\|(1), \fBfinger\fR\|(1), \s-1RFC 1288.\s0