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

I have a web page:
http://webpagedirectory/web.html

I would like to run this page once a day. The page updates data for another web page. I would like to create a script to put in my NT task scheduler to run once a day. The only info I can find on doing this is in Perl cookbook with the LWP::RobotUA but not sure if this is the right thing to use. Please advise how I can do this??

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Automatically run a web page
by Corion (Patriarch) on Apr 21, 2003 at 17:29 UTC

    If you need to automate web tasks, WWW::Mechanize is the way to go. It has an interface much like a command line browser. The code for your problem would be like the following :

    use strict;
use WWW::Mechanize;

my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new();
$agent->get('http://webpagedirectory/web.html');

    [download]
    but as long as you only need to request that one page once a day, LWP::Simple is even simpler : 
    use strict;
use LWP::Simple;

get("http://webpagedirectory/web.html");

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    Both modules can be found on the http://www.cpan.org and installed through perl -MCPAN -e "install LWP::Simple" respective perl -MCPAN -e "install WWW::Mechanize". 

    perl -MHTTP::Daemon -MHTTP::Response -MLWP::Simple -e ' ;    # The  
$d = new HTTP::Daemon and fork and getprint $d->url and exit;#spider
($c = $d->accept())->get_request(); $c->send_response( new   #in the
HTTP::Response(200,$_,$_,qq(Just another Perl hacker\n))); ' #  web

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[d/l]
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•Re: Automatically run a web page
by merlyn (Sage) on Apr 21, 2003 at 17:41 UTC
    Why is this on a web page? What if it gets hits multiple times in a day?

    If a task isn't providing web content, it doesn't really belong on a web page. Just write a script to perform the actions, and use some sort of scheduling software (cron on Unix, and you said "NT Task Scheduler", so I guess you're on windows) to run the script periodically.

    Do not pervert the web. {grin}

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
    Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

[reply]
      Thanks for all the input. This is in a cold fusion page and I would have to write a script to execute this: 
      
<CFSET IndexCollection = "mysearch">
<CFSET IndexDirectory = "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\searcher">
<CFSET IndexRecurse = "YES">
<CFSET IndexExtensions = ".htm, .html, .pl, *.,.cfm">
<CFSET IndexLanguage = "english">

<CFINDEX 
    collection="#IndexCollection#"
    action="REFRESH"
    type="PATH"
    key="#IndexDirectory#\"
    extensions="#IndexExtensions#"
    recurse="#IndexRecurse#"
    language="#IndexLanguage#"

    urlPath="http://127.0.0.1/searcher/"

>

<HTML><HEAD>
    <TITLE>data</TITLE>


<FONT size="+2"><B>Indexing Finished</B></FONT>

      [download]
      I dont have any idea how I would make this into a script. Currently it runs when I put in the URL in my browser Location/address then it comes back saying "Indexing Finished" and it updates my search web page.
[reply]
[d/l]
        ColdFusion has a scheduler built in. On the admin page, click on 'Scheduled Tasks' under 'automated tasks'.

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