Let's talk about perl since this is a perl forum:

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#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use LWP::RobotUA;
use HTML::LinkExtor;
use HTML::TokeParser;
use URI::URL;
use Data::Dumper; # for show and troubleshooting
my $url = "http://www.nukeforums.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=17";
my $ua = LWP::RobotUA->new;
my $lp = HTML::LinkExtor->new(\&wanted_links);
my @links;
get_threads($url);
foreach my $page (@links) { # this loops over each link collected from the index
 my $r = $ua->get($page);
 if ($r->is_success) {
  my $stream = HTML::TokeParser->new(\$r->content) or die "Parse error in $page: $!";
  # just printing what was collected
  print Dumper get_thread($stream);
  # would instead have database insert statement at this point
  } else {
  warn $r->status_line;
  }
}
sub get_thread {
 my $p = shift;
 my ($title, $name, @thread);
 while (my $tag = $p->get_tag('a','span')) {
  if (exists $tag->[1]{'class'}) {
   if ($tag->[0] eq 'span') {
    if ($tag->[1]{'class'} eq 'name') {
     $name = $p->get_trimmed_text('/span');
    } elsif ($tag->[1]{'class'} eq 'postbody') {
     my $post = $p->get_trimmed_text('/span');
     push @thread, {'name'=>$name, 'post'=>$post};
    }
   } else {
    if ($tag->[1]{'class'} eq 'maintitle') {
     $title = $p->get_trimmed_text('/a');
    }
   }
  }
 }
 return {'title'=>$title, 'thread'=>\@thread};
}
sub get_threads {
 my $page = shift;
 my $r = $ua->request(HTTP::Request->new(GET => $url), sub {$lp->parse($_[0])});
 # Expand URLs to absolute ones
 my $base = $r->base;
 return [map { $_ = url($_, $base)->abs; } @links];
}
sub wanted_links {
 my($tag, %attr) = @_;
 return unless exists $attr{'href'};
 return if $attr{'href'} !~ /^viewtopic\.php\?t=/;
 push @links, values %attr;
}

#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use LWP::RobotUA; use HTML::LinkExtor; use HTML::TokeParser; use URI::URL; use Data::Dumper; # for show and troubleshooting my $url = "http://www.nukeforums.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=17"; my $ua = LWP::RobotUA->new; my $lp = HTML::LinkExtor->new(\&wanted_links); my @links; get_threads($url); foreach my $page (@links) { # this loops over each link collected from the index my $r = $ua->get($page); if ($r->is_success) { my $stream = HTML::TokeParser->new(\$r->content) or die "Parse error in $page: $!"; # just printing what was collected print Dumper get_thread($stream); # would instead have database insert statement at this point } else { warn $r->status_line; } } sub get_thread { my $p = shift; my ($title, $name, @thread); while (my $tag = $p->get_tag('a','span')) { if (exists $tag->[1]{'class'}) { if ($tag->[0] eq 'span') { if ($tag->[1]{'class'} eq 'name') { $name = $p->get_trimmed_text('/span'); } elsif ($tag->[1]{'class'} eq 'postbody') { my $post = $p->get_trimmed_text('/span'); push @thread, {'name'=>$name, 'post'=>$post}; } } else { if ($tag->[1]{'class'} eq 'maintitle') { $title = $p->get_trimmed_text('/a'); } } } } return {'title'=>$title, 'thread'=>\@thread}; } sub get_threads { my $page = shift; my $r = $ua->request(HTTP::Request->new(GET => $url), sub {$lp->parse($_[0])}); # Expand URLs to absolute ones my $base = $r->base; return [map { $_ = url($_, $base)->abs; } @links]; } sub wanted_links { my($tag, %attr) = @_; return unless exists $attr{'href'}; return if $attr{'href'} !~ /^viewtopic\.php\?t=/; push @links, values %attr; }

If you have the necessary modules installed, and run it from the command line you'll see output such as the following:

Perl Syntax (Toggle Plain Text)

$VAR1 = {
          'thread' => [
                        {
                          'post' => 'Hello, I\'m pretty new to PHPNuke. I\'ve got my site up and running great! I\'m now starting to make modifications, add modules etc. I\'m using the most recent RavenPHP76. I want to display the 5 most recent forum posts at the top of the forum page. I\'m not sure if this functionality is built in, if so, how to activate. Or if there is a module or block made to do this. I looked at Raven\'s Collapsing Forum block but wasn\'t crazy about the format, and I don\'t want it to be collapsable. Thanks! mopho',
                          'name' => 'mopho'
                        },
                        {
                          'post' => 'hi there',
                          'name' => 'sail'
                        },
                        {
                          'post' => 'thanks for asking this; :not very sure if i got you right; Do you want to have a feed of the last forumthreads? guess the easiest way is to go to raven and ask how he did it. hth sail.',
                          'name' => 'sail'
                        },
                        {
                          'post' => 'Thanks. i found what I was looking for. It wasn\'t so easy to find! It\'s called glance_mod. mopho',
                          'name' => 'mopho'
                        },
                        {
                          'post' => 'hi there thx',
                          'name' => 'sail'
                        },
                        {
                          'post' => 'it sound interesting - i will have also a look i google after it - and try to find out more regards sailor',
                          'name' => 'sail'
                        }
                      ],
          'title' => 'Recent Forum Posts Module'
        };

$VAR1 = { 'thread' => [ { 'post' => 'Hello, I\'m pretty new to PHPNuke. I\'ve got my site up and running great! I\'m now starting to make modifications, add modules etc. I\'m using the most recent RavenPHP76. I want to display the 5 most recent forum posts at the top of the forum page. I\'m not sure if this functionality is built in, if so, how to activate. Or if there is a module or block made to do this. I looked at Raven\'s Collapsing Forum block but wasn\'t crazy about the format, and I don\'t want it to be collapsable. Thanks! mopho', 'name' => 'mopho' }, { 'post' => 'hi there', 'name' => 'sail' }, { 'post' => 'thanks for asking this; :not very sure if i got you right; Do you want to have a feed of the last forumthreads? guess the easiest way is to go to raven and ask how he did it. hth sail.', 'name' => 'sail' }, { 'post' => 'Thanks. i found what I was looking for. It wasn\'t so easy to find! It\'s called glance_mod. mopho', 'name' => 'mopho' }, { 'post' => 'hi there thx', 'name' => 'sail' }, { 'post' => 'it sound interesting - i will have also a look i google after it - and try to find out more regards sailor', 'name' => 'sail' } ], 'title' => 'Recent Forum Posts Module' };

This is really preliminary. It just grabs the basic text from the threads and doesn't handle the quoted text right yet. I don't think that would be hard to fix. There are many parsing approaches that can be taken in perl, I just don't have more time tonight.
You obviously also have to set up a database to capture information you want to store.
Additionally, I just looped over the first index page, I didn't set up a loop to grab each of the index pages but I consider that trivial.
Continue with perl, or use some other language. There will not be a ready made product to take exactly what you want from the web. You will have to make a little effort no matter what method you use.