MicrobicTiger has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi All,

INFO - this question has also been posted on Stackoverflow.com

I have a button in a website I can't work out how to press. It's not in a form so mechanize doesn't work, I've tried IEAutomation. I'm working with IE 10 and chrome so mechanize::firefox isn't an option. Trying to click the button on the line marked with (*)

The solution needs to be in perl (so it can be called from inside another application).

    <html>
     <head>
     </head>
     <body>
      <table>
       <tr>
        <td>
        <td>
         <table>
          <tr>
           <td>
            <!-- start of toolbar Main -->
            <table>
             <tr>
              <td>
               <table>
                <tr class="buttonPad">
                </tr>
                <tr>
       (*)       <td nowrap="true" valign="top" class="button"><a id="
+S7674" accesskey="S" class="button" title="SEARCH" onclick="dispatch(
+'S7674');"><u>S</u>></td>
                </tr>
               </table>
              </td>
              <td</td>
             </tr>
            </table>
          </td>
          </tr>
         </table>
        </td>
        </td>
       </tr>
      </table>
     </body>
    </html>

[download]

Here's what I have:

    my $content = get($funky);
    
    my $tree = HTML::Tree->new();
    
    $tree->parse($content);
    
    my ($title) = $tree->look_down( '_tag' , 'a' );
    my $atag = "";
    foreach $atag ( $tree->look_down( _tag => q{a}, 'class' => 'button
+', 'title' => 'SEARCH' ) ) 
    {
        print $atag->attr('id'), "\n";
    }
    my $ie = Win32::IEAutomation->new( visible => 0, maximize => 0);
    $ie->gotoURL($funky);
    $ie->getButton('id:', $atag )->Click();

[download]

I get "Can't call method "Click" on an undefined value". Anyone got a bright idea? Cheers Micro

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: web automation button clicking problems
by tangent (Parson) on Jan 31, 2014 at 03:10 UTC
    I see from your question on Stackoverflow that the id changes each time, so to find the id of the search link you could use HTML::TreeBuilder::XPath 
    use HTML::TreeBuilder::XPath;
# ...
my $tree = HTML::TreeBuilder::XPath->new_from_content($content);
my $id = $tree->findvalue('//a[@title="SEARCH"]/@id');

    [download]
    I'm not familiar with Win32::IEAutomation but the "button" you need to click on is actually a link so change getButton() to: 
    $ie->getLink('id:', $id )->Click();

    [download]
    That may not work as it is a javascript function - onclick="dispatch()" - if it doesn't you will need to examine the javascript to see where the link is going to and what parameters it has, then you could probably use LWP::UserAgent to access.
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]

      Thanks Tangent.

      I'm afraid I still get the same error. It seems to be the

       click()

      That it takes exception to.

[reply]
[d/l]
[reply]
[d/l]
        Can you find the javascript function "dispatch()" and post it here - it will either be on the page somewhere or in an external javascript file linked from the page.
[reply]
Re: web automation button clicking problems ( DOM getElementById )
by Anonymous Monk on Jan 31, 2014 at 03:08 UTC
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: web automation button clicking problems
by Kenosis (Priest) on Jan 31, 2014 at 01:55 UTC

    Hi MicrobicTiger, and welcome to PerlMonks.

    I've noticed that you posted this same question at StackOverflow. For your future reference, it would be a courtesy to let potential respondents know that you've cross-posted the question, in case your question's already been answered, as doing so may save the efforts of those willing to invest the time to answer it.

[reply]

      Thanks Kenosis

      Fair comment.

      I have updated it and will post a links to answers on either site.

      Cheers

      Micro

[reply]

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