Limbic~Region has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

All,
If you open this link up in your browser, it will probably start downloading the subtitles (.srt file) to the first episode of Bates Motel. When I fetch the page with WWW::Mechanize though, I get HTML with no apparent way to get at the file.

I am pretty bleary eyed from a 24 hour coding session so I am sure I am missing something simple. I looked at it through firebug but didn't see what I was missing.

What should I be doing?

Cheers - L~R

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Download a file with WWW::Mechanize
by Gangabass (Vicar) on Apr 21, 2013 at 06:02 UTC
    I'm sure this is not WWW::Mechanize issue because this simple script works for me: 
    #!/usr/bin/perl

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

my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
#$mech->agent_alias("Windows IE 6");

$mech->get("http://dl.opensubtitles.org/en/download/file/1953419460");
$mech->save_content("result.srt");

    [download]
    What HTML do you have?
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
      Gangabass,
      I slept for 10 hours and haven't had a chance to test the code (which obviously was a small piece of a much larger script). I assume you are right and that the problem was elsewhere. I will see what happens and report back if still having problems.

      Update: Yep. I wasn't bothering to verify I was fetching the URL I thought I was. Instead of http://dl.opensubtitles.org/en/download/file/1953419460, I was grabbing http://dl.opensubtitles.org/en/download/file1953419460.

      Cheers - L~R

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
        $mech->show_progress(1);
[reply]
Re: Download a file with WWW::Mechanize
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Apr 21, 2013 at 06:29 UTC

    This works:

    wget "http://dl.opensubtitles.org/en/download/file/1953419460"

    [download]

    Albeit that you'd have to rename the file afterward.

    With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'
    Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
    "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
    In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
[reply]
[d/l]
      BrowserUk,
      Which likely means the problem exists elsewhere. I probably should have known better than to continue coding beyond the point of exhaustion. English is my wife's 3rd language and getting subtitles for her is almost a necessity. Update: Yes, the problem existed between the keyboard and chair. I just verified I was missing a / delimiter in my URL.

      Cheers - L~R

[reply]

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