NAME
    Net::Whois::Raw - Perl extension for unparsed raw whois information

SYNOPSIS
      use Net::Whois::Raw;
  
      $s = whois('perl.com');
      $s = whois('funet.fi');
      $s = whois('yahoo.co.uk');

      $OMIT_MSG = 1; # This will attempt to strip several knwon copyright
                    messages and disclaimers
      $CHECK_FAIL = 1; # This will return undef if the response matches
                    one of the known patterns for a failed search.

DESCRIPTION
    Net::Whois::Raw queries NetworkSolutions and follows the Registrar:
    answer for ORG, EDU, COM and NET domains. For other TLDs it uses the
    whois-servers.net namespace. ($TLD.whois-servers.net).

    Setting the variables $OMIT_MSG and $CHECK_FAIL will match the results
    against a set of known patterns. The first flag will try to omit the
    copyright message/disclaimer, the second will attempt to determine if
    the search failed and return undef in such a case.

    IMPORTANT: these checks merely use pattern matching; they will work on
    several servers but certainly not on all of them.

    (This features were contributed by Walery Studennikov despair@sama.ru)

AUTHOR
    Ariel Brosh, schop@cpan.org, Inspired by jwhois.pl available on the net.

    Peter Chow, peter@interq.or.jp, Corrections. (See below)

    Alex Withers awithers@gonzaga.edu, ARIN support. (See below)

    Walery Studennikov despair@sama.ru, several servers and the pattern
    matching idea.

    Philip Hands phil@uk.alcove.com, Trevor Peirce trev@digitalcon.ca, RIPE
    reverse lookup support. (See below)

MODIFICATIONS

    Fixed regular expression to match hyphens. (Peter Chow,
    peter@interq.or.jp)


    Added support for Tonga TLD. (.to) (Peter Chow, peter@interq.or.jp)


    Added support for reverse lookup of IP addresses via the ARIN registry.
    (Alex Withers awithers@gonzaga.edu) This will work now for RIPE
    addresses as well, according to a redirection from ARIN.

CLARIFICATION
    As NetworkSolutions got most of the domains of InterNic as legacy, we
    start by querying their server, as this way one whois query would be
    sufficient for many domains. Starting at whois.internic.net or
    whois.crsnic.net will result in always two requests in any case.

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright 2000-2001 Ariel Brosh.

    This package is free software. You may redistribute it or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.

    I apologize for any misunderstandings caused by the lack of a clear
    licence in previous versions.

COMMERCIAL SUPPORT
    As of May 2001, commercial support for modules by SCHOP@CPAN is
    available via Raz Information Systems, Israel. Mail raz@raz.co.il for
    details. Note: this is only for commercial organizations in need of
    support contracts. You are not requested to pay anything to use the
    module in your organization for a commercial application and there are
    no royalties for redistributing it to your customers.

SEE ALSO
    the perl(1) manpage, the Net::Whois manpage.