#!/usr/bin/perl
#browse.pl

# example useage:
# browse.pl
# browse.pl perl.beginners
# browse.pl comp.unix.shell
# (comp.lang.perl.misc is the default group) 

use strict;
use warnings;
use WWW::Mechanize;

my $browser_path = '/cygdrive/c/Program\ Files/Mozilla\ Firefox/firefox.exe ';
my $group_name = 'comp.lang.perl.misc'; # default group. it will be used if you don't provide one as parameter
$group_name = $ARGV[0] if @ARGV; # user specified group, from commandline parameter
my $url = 'http://groups.google.com/group/'.$group_name.'/topics?gvc=2'; 
my $limit = 10; # limit number of posts to open

print "Group: [$group_name]\n";
my $m = WWW::Mechanize->new();
print "Getting $limit links of threads...\n";
$m->get($url);
die "oooops! could not load main page\n" unless $m->success;
my $html = $m->content() ;
#print $html;

my @links = ($html =~ m{<td><a href="(/group/$group_name/browse_thread/thread/[^/]+/[^/]+)#[^/]+">}igs);
if (@links)	{
	@links = map {'http://groups.google.com' . $_} @links;
	my @links_limited = splice @links, 0, $limit;
	my $url_string = sprintf (qq/"%s"/, join q/" "/, @links_limited);
	#print $url_string."\n";
	print "Opening browser...\n";
	system ($browser_path . $url_string . ' &');
}else{
	print "oooops! could not load main page\n";
}

exit 0;