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# Startpage Engines

Startpage’s language & region selectors are a mess ..

## Startpage regions

In the list of regions there are tags we need to map to common region tags:

    pt-BR_BR --> pt_BR
    zh-CN_CN --> zh_Hans_CN
    zh-TW_TW --> zh_Hant_TW
    zh-TW_HK --> zh_Hant_HK
    en-GB_GB --> en_GB

and there is at least one tag with a three letter language tag (ISO 639-2):

    fil_PH --> fil_PH

The locale code `no_NO` from Startpage does not exists and is mapped to `nb-NO`:

    babel.core.UnknownLocaleError: unknown locale 'no_NO'

For reference see languages-subtag at iana; `no` is the macrolanguage [1] and W3C recommends subtag over macrolanguage [2].

[ 1 ]

iana: language-subtag-registry

    type: language
    Subtag: nb
    Description: Norwegian Bokmål
    Added: 2005-10-16
    Suppress-Script: Latn
    Macrolanguage: no

[ 2 ]

Use macrolanguages with care. Some language subtags have a Scope field set to macrolanguage, i.e. this primary language subtag encompasses a number of more specific primary language subtags in the registry. … As we recommended for the collection subtags mentioned above, in most cases you should try to use the more specific subtags … W3: The primary language subtag

## Startpage languages

HTTP `Accept-Language` header (`send_accept_language_header`):

  The displayed name in Startpage’s settings page depend on the location of the IP when `Accept-Language` HTTP header is unset.

  Startpage tries to guess user’s language and territory from the HTTP `Accept-Language`. Optional the user can select a search-language (can be different to the UI language) and a region filter.

  In `fetch_traits` we use:

      'Accept-Language': "en-US,en;q=0.5",
      ..

  to get uniform names independent from the IP).

## Startpage categories

Startpage’s category (for Web-search, News, Videos, ..) is set by `startpage_categ` in settings.yml:

    - name: startpage
      engine: startpage
      startpage_categ: web
      ...

Hint

Supported categories are `web`, `news` and `images`.

searx.engines.startpage.startpage_categ = 'web'

  Startpage’s category, visit Startpage categories.

searx.engines.startpage.max_page = 18

  Tested 18 pages maximum (argument `page`), to be save max is set to 20.

searx.engines.startpage.search_form_xpath = '//form[@id="search"]'

  XPath of Startpage’s origin search form

searx.engines.startpage.CACHE: EngineCache

  Persistent (SQLite) key/value cache that deletes its values after `expire` seconds.

searx.engines.startpage.sc_code_cache_sec = 3600

  Time in seconds the sc-code is cached in memory `get_sc_code`.

searx.engines.startpage.get_sc_code(params)

  Get an actual `sc` argument from Startpage’s search form (HTML page).

  Startpage puts a `sc` argument on every HTML `search form`. Without this argument Startpage considers the request is from a bot. We do not know what is encoded in the value of the `sc` argument, but it seems to be a kind of a timestamp.

  Startpage’s search form generates a new sc-code on each request. This function scrapes a new sc-code from Startpage’s home page every `sc_code_cache_sec` seconds.

searx.engines.startpage.request(query, params)

  Assemble a Startpage request.

  To avoid CAPTCHAs we need to send a well formed HTTP POST request with a cookie. We need to form a request that is identical to the request built by Startpage’s search form:

  - in the cookie the region is selected

  - in the HTTP POST data the language is selected

  Additionally the arguments form Startpage’s search form needs to be set in HTML POST data / compare `<input>` elements: `search_form_xpath`.

searx.engines.startpage.fetch_traits(engine_traits: EngineTraits )

  Fetch languages and regions from Startpage.