BW whois HISTORY

wew: William E. Weinman -- original author of BW Whois

version 2.7 -- wew 26 November 2000
  changed the way the tld.conf file works so that lower-level 
    domains can have different whois servers. This was necessary 
    for the .net.au domain. Thanks to Steve Head <shead@onthe.net.au>
  changed the format of the tld.conf file for the above change. The 
    leading '.' is now required. Please use the new tld.conf file with 
    this code. 

version 2.6 -- wew 24 November 2000
  rewrote all the ARIN stuff -- this works a whole lot better. 
  NETBLK delegation is now handled more intelligently
  rwhois servers now default to port 4321
  fixed case-sensitivity in TLDs. 
    thanks Nicolas St-Pierre <nstpierre@iasl.com>
  moved HTMLization of results to _print 
    to prevent mis-interpretation of results in CGI mode
    thanks to Christian von Roques <roques@mti.ag> for pointing this out
  added quiet option to CGI mode. 
  fixed problems passing optiions in CGI mode
  in CGI mode, handles are only recognized if they are longer than 3 
    characters -- fixes problem with (FAX)
    thanks to Dave Holle <dav@xnet.com> for help identifying CGI problems
  added code to send "/e" to whois.nic.ad.jp
    turn this off with --jpokay (see man page for more info)

version 2.5a -- wew
  fixed some regex character classes for perl 5.6 
     thanks Todd Eigenschink for pointing this out
  
version 2.5 -- wew 11 April 2000
  split out the documentation into a man page and this HISTORY file
  bugfix -- another NETBLK referrals bugfix, the last one broke
    the referral mechanism entirely. This one works right again. 
  improved the error reporting for the connection to the whois server
  added support for ports other than whois(43). Use --port or 
    request@host:port. Port names (via /etc/services) or numbers 
    are supported. 
  added support for alternate location of tld.conf via --tld or 
    BW_WHOIS="tld=/other/location/tld.conf"

version 2.4 -- never released

version 2.3 -- wew 16 March 2000
  bugfix -- ARIN changed their whois display in a manner 
    broke my referral-detection. I've added a new exception 
    for whois.nic.mil. 
  add environment variable support. 
    BW_WHOIS="stripheader" to default to strip headers
    BW_WHOIS="quiet" to default to quiet mode
    BW_WHOIS="stripheader:quiet" for both
  CGI mode: attempt to build a reasonable link to 
    related records (e.g. NIC handles)
    Note: this feature uses the RFC-954 "!" syntax to 
    look up the handle. Not all registrars support this. 

version 2.21 -- wew 11 March 2000
  bugfix -- uninitialized variable bug

version 2.2 -- wew 10 March 2000
  bugfix: all-numeric addresses were still tested for TLD
  add support for multiple domain names on the command line. 
    thanks to Paul Vincent <paul@anglia-web.co.uk> for 
    suggesting this feature
  generalized the stripheader option
  added support for netblock references (e.g. RIPE, APNIC)

version 2.1 -- wew 6 Jan 2000
  added support for optional TLD table at /etc/tld.conf

version 2.0 -- wew 6 Jan 2000
  first public release of the 2.0 version
  rewrote and cleaned up a whole bunch of stuff
  added CGI support

version 1.4a -- wew 8 Dec 1999 
  whois.corenic.net doesn't undderstand the domain command
    -- I guess the concept of standardization is lost on 
    these folks. Anyway, now I only send the domain command 
    to whois.internic.net. 
    thanks to Cooper Vertz <cooper@cooper8.com> for 
    pointing this out. 

version 1.4 -- wew 8 Dec 1999 
  a hack for a mis-feature in the root whois server 
    at whois.internic.net. it seems to have a small number 
    of records that are not 2nd-level domains but are named 
    the same as existing 2nd-level domains. I added a test 
    for a valid 2nd-level domain in whois_fetch() and have it 
    request the record as a domain. 
    thanks to Rick Macdougall <rickm@axess.com>

version 1.3 -- wew 5 Dec 1999 
  added check for IP numbers or 'NETBLK' and set default to ARIN
    thanks to "Todd R. Eigenschink" <todd@tekinteractive.com>
  fixed an "uninitialized variable" problem. 
    thanks again to "Todd R. Eigenschink" <todd@tekinteractive.com>

version 1.2 -- wew 3 Dec 1999
  added new syntax for specifying a host. can now say:
  whois <request>@<host>   as a synonym for: 
  whois -h <host> <request>
    thanks to Rob Friedman <playerx_@hotmail.com> for suggesting
    this feature. 

version 1.1 -- wew 3 Dec 1999 
  added --stripheader (by popular demand)
  thanks to Bill Shupp <hostmaster@shupp.org> for the concept.
  also -- now prints "Registrar: <host>" line (unless quiet)

version 1.0 -- wew 2 Dec 1999  -- first release

