To make a long story very short, it turns out that there was more than one button on the form. I didn't realize this. The redirect works perfectly. I merely had to select the correct button.

$webtest->submit_form(
        form_name => 'lookup',
        button    => 'do_search',
        fields    => {
            title_name => 'Suspects',
        });
[download]

Everyone be sure to /msg Ovid RTFM :)

That's why I have the mech-dump program included with Mech. Run it against the page you're interested in and you'll have a handy summary of what's going on in the page.

xoxo,
Andy

Here's the basics of how the web testing object is set up. If WWW::Mechanize should automatically follow a redirect request, then perhaps there's something wrong I am doing in the setup?

package Foo::Webtest;

use strict;
use warnings;

use URI;
use Hook::LexWrap;
use WWW::Mechanize;

use Class::MethodMaker (
  new => 'new',
  object => [
    'WWW::Mechanize' => {
      slot       => 'browser',
      comp_mthds => [qw/
        add_header agent_alias back         base        click
        content    ct          current_form field       find_all_links
        find_link  follow_link form_name    form_number forms
        get        is_html     links        quiet       redirect_ok
        reload     request     response     set_fields  status
        submit     submit_form success      tick        title
        untick     uri
      /],
    }
]);

my $start_time;
my @times;
my %URI;

if ($ENV{TRACK_NAVIGATION}) {
  foreach my $method (qw/back click follow_link get reload submit subm
+it_form/) {
    wrap $method, 
      pre  => sub {$start_time  = time},
      post => sub {
        my $end_time = time;
        my $time     = $end_time - $start_time;
        push @times  => $time;
        push @{$URI{$_[0]->base_uri}} => $time;
      }
   }
}
[download]

The above code is my setup for the Mechanize object. I use Class::MethodMaker to ensure that I have a "hasa" relationship to Mechanize and all methods listed are delegated to the Mechanize object. Then, Hook::LexWrap is called to allow me to (loosely) time the fetch methods.

Later, I can do this:

my $webtest = Foo::Webtest->new;
$webtest->get($page_to_test);
# and then use the code in my root post
[download]

(Note that this was pared down fairly quickly). I am wondering if my weird setup is causing the problem. All I know right now is that I receive a redirect, but the $webtest->content still points to the page the original form is on. I was hoping it was simply a quick question on how to get the form to automatically follow, but if it's not, I can spend some time paring this down to a minimal test case.