Picons Search

Steve Kinzler <steve@kinzler.com>

Search the picons databases, large collections of thumbnail images representing Internet users and domains and Usenet newsgroups.

Search Users & Domains

Select search type: (1) up will match all picons for the given user and domain as well as all picons for more general users and domains according to the standard picons search algorithm. Regular expressions are not recognized. (2) patt will allow perl-style regular expressions for users and domains and will match all and only picons matching the given patterns, but may not include new picons added during the previous day.
up patt

Enter user and domain: Multiple usernames, separated by spaces, may be entered in the first field and multiple Internet domains may be entered in the second field. With the patt search type specified above, perl-style regular expressions are allowed.
@
user(s)@host(s)

Select databases: Leave selected the picons databases you wish to search across. See the Picons FAQ for a description of the databases.
db(s)

Select display options: Select the show option if you wish the search results page to include in-line images of the found picons. Warning: with large searches, this can result in many small image transfers.
show

Specify a limit: Limit the number of matches to the given number. A maximum limit of 50 is enforced with the show display option. Otherwise, the maximum limit is 250.
limit

Select ordering: order will list the matches in a sorted order, while random will list them in a random order. Select random to list a random subset of all possible matches, if there are more than the limit.
order random

Search Newsgroups & Hierarchies

Select search type: (1) up will match all picons for the given newsgroup as well as all picons for more general news hierarchies according to the standard picons search algorithm. Regular expressions are not recognized. (2) patt will allow perl-style regular expressions for newsgroups and will match all and only picons matching the given patterns, but may not include new picons added during the previous day.
up patt

Enter newsgroup: Multiple newsgroups or news hierarchies, separated by spaces, may be entered. With the patt search type specified above, perl-style regular expressions are allowed.
newsgroup(s)

Select databases: Leave selected the picons databases you wish to search across. See the Picons FAQ for a description of the databases.
db(s)

Specify a limit: Limit the number of matches to the given number. A maximum limit of 50 is enforced with the show display option. Otherwise, the maximum limit is 250.
limit

Demonstration Searches

Example Search Patterns

With the patt search type, perl-style regular expressions may be used for the user, domain and newsgroup specifications. These patterns are case-insensitive and implicitly bound to the beginning of the string (^) and the end of the string ($). Some examples:

smith@.*: Search for username smith in any domain
.*smith.*@.*: Search for smith as part of any username in any domain
.*@.*usenix\.org: Search for all users in the usenix.org domain, ie, all Usenix personnel
.*@.*\b(house|senate)\.gov: Search for all members of the American Congress
.*smith.*@.*\b(house|senate)\.gov: Search for all Smiths in the American Congress

rec\.humor.*: Search for all newsgroups in the rec.humor hierarchy
.*oracle.*: Search for all newsgroups with oracle as part of their name

Invalid regular expressions will result in an internal server error which, of course, is not a server problem and should not be reported to any webmaster.

How to Construct a Search URL

This search engine can be used non-interactively by anchoring to a URL of the form:

http://kinzler.com/cgi/piconsearch.cgi/HOST/USER/DB/up/off/##/order or
http://kinzler.com/cgi/piconsearch.cgi?USER@HOST

where the HOST, USER and DB fields may contain multiple items separated by +'s. up may be replaced by patt to change the search type. off may be replaced by on to enable inline picons display, or by single to retrieve only a single image object instead of the search results web page. The ## should be replaced by the numerical limit value or, with single, by a +-separated, prioritized list of acceptable image types. order may be replaced by random to change the ordering. Extra fields are ignored, trailing fields may be left off, and any fields may be just a + if their default values are satisfactory.