Why can't I fetch wikipedia pages with LWP::Simple?

Question

I'm trying to fetch Wikipedia pages using LWP::Simple, but they're not coming back. This code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use LWP::Simple;

print get("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_overflow");

doesn't print anything. But if I use some other webpage, say http://www.google.com, it works fine.

Is there some other name that I should be using to refer to Wikipedia pages?

What could be going on here?

Answer 1

Apparently Wikipedia blocks LWP::Simple requests: http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=695886

The following works instead:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use LWP::UserAgent;

my $url = "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_overflow";

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
my $res = $ua->get($url);

print $res->content;

Answer 2

Because Wikipedia is blocking the HTTP user-agent string used by LWP::Simple.

You will get a "403 Forbidden"-response if you try using it.

Try the LWP::UserAgent module to work around this, setting the agent-attribute.

Answer 3

Also see the Mediawiki related CPAN modules - these are designed to hit Mediawiki sites (of which wikipedia is one) and might give you more bells and whistles than simple LWP.

http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/search?query=Mediawiki&mode=dist

Answer 4

You can also just set the UA on the LWP::Simple module - just import the $ua variable, and it'll allow you to modify the underlying UserAgent:

use LWP::Simple qw/get $ua/;
$ua->agent("WikiBot/0.1");
print get("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_overflow");