Wayback

The Internet Archive's ⏳Wayback Machine interface for Crystal.

Installation

1. Add the dependency to your shard.yml:

   dependencies:
     wayback:
       github: lucasintel/wayback.cr
   

2. Run shards install

Usage

Retrieve the latest snapshot for a given page

Wayback.latest_snapshot("https://kyivindependent.com/")

Retrieve snapshots for a given page by a date range

Wayback.snapshots("https://kyivindependent.com/", from: 1.month.ago, to: Time.local)

Retrieve the latest 10 snapshots under a given path

Wayback.snapshots("https://kyivindependent.com/*", latest: 10)

Retrieve the first snapshot for a given page

Wayback.first_snapshot("https://kyivindependent.com/")

Advanced usage

The library provides a straightforward interface for building complex queries as well.

Wayback::Query.url("https://kyivindependent.com/*")
  .from(1.year.ago)
  .to(Time.local)
  .mime_type(/image\/*./)
  .status_not(301)
  .status_not(404)
  .latest(10)

Wayback.perform(query)

Grouping

Aggregate snapshots based on a field, or a substring (position) of a field.

# 📰 news headlines by day
query = Wayback::Query.url("https://kyivindependent.com/").group_by_day
Wayback.perform(query)

It's possible to track how many snapshots were skipped due to filtering and grouping by including #with_aggregate_count in the chain. This feature is optional since it might slow down the query.

# Unique captures per URL.
query = Wayback::Query.url("https://kyivindependent.com/*").group_by_url.with_aggregate_count
snapshots = Wayback.perform(query)
snapshots.first.url
# => https://kyivindependent.com/opinion/natalia-datskevych-my-rescue-mission-to-flee-russias-war-with-three-kids/
snapshots.first.aggregate_count
# => 5

Low level API

params = {
  "url"      => "https://kyivindependent.com/",
  "filter"   => "!status:404",
  "collapse" => "timestamp:10",
}
Wayback.execute(params)

References

• Wayback Machine CDX-Server API
• A Sustainable, Large-Scale, Minimal Approach to Accessing Web Archives (Greg Wiedeman, archivist at the University At Albany)
• Wayback Machine APIs
• The CDX File Format

Contributing

1. Fork it (https://github.com/lucasintel/wayback.cr/fork)
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request

Contributors

• Lucas - creator and maintainer