README
1The Net::Z3950::ZOOM, ZOOM and Net::Z3950 modules
2=================================================
3
4This distribution contains three Perl modules for the price of one.
5They all provide facilities for building information retrieval clients
6using the standard Z39.50 and SRW/U protocols, but do so using
7different APIs.
8
9- If you are new to this distribution, then you should use the ZOOM
10 API, and ignore the others. It is the cleanest, most elegant and
11 intuitive, and most closely follows the letter as well as the spirit
12 of the Abstract ZOOM API as specified at http://zoom.z3950.org/api/
13
14- If you have used the old Net::Z3950 module and have to maintain an
15 application that calls that API, then you will want to use the
16 Net::Z3950 classes provided in this distribution, which provide an
17 API compatible with the old module's implemented on top of the new
18 ZOOM code.
19
20- You should definitely not use the Net::Z3950::ZOOM API, which is not
21 object-oriented, and instead provides the thinnest possible layer on
22 top of the ZOOM-C functions in the YAZ toolkit. This API exists
23 only in order to have ZOOM API built on top of it.
24
25
26INSTALLATION
27
28To install this module type the following:
29
30 perl Makefile.PL
31 make
32 make test
33 make install
34
35
36DEBIAN PACKAGES
37
38To build Debian packages issue:
39
40 dh-make-perl --build
41
42
43DEPENDENCIES
44
45This module requires these other modules and libraries:
46
47- The YAZ toolkit for Z39.50 and SRW/U communication. This is
48 available as a package on several platform -- for example, Debian
49 GNU/Linux supports "apt-get install yaz". For others, you will need
50 to download and build the source-code, which is much more
51 straightforward that you probably expect. You can get it from
52 http://indexdata.com/yaz/
53
54 NOTE THAT THE ZOOM-Perl MODULE ABSOLUTELY REQUIRES RELEASE 2.0.11 OR
55 BETTER OF THE YAZ TOOLKIT. You need version 2.1.17 or better if you
56 want to run clever asynchronous programs that use the END event,
57 which did not exist prior to that release.
58
59COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE
60
61Copyright (C) 2005-2014 by Index Data.
62
63This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
64it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.4 or,
65at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.
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