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',
        });
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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

Andy, Can you tell me how mech-dump works? I'm trying to post a reply to a friends forum. I get the page like this

get("http://user:passwd\@www.somesite.com/subdir/_vti_bin/shtml.exe/po
+st.htm?474")
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I checked response() and this works fine. I get the form and fill in the field like this.

$w->form_number(1);
$w->field('Comments', 'woo-hoo');
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Again, this works fine. The button to post the reply isn't named so I do this.

$w->submit_form();
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Then I check the response

my $r = $w->response();
print 'error_as_HTML: '.$r->error_as_HTML."\n";
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and get a "401 Authorization Required" error.

I think the problem is that the ?474 in the url is a dynamic number assigned by the shtml code. That's one thing I have NO idea how to automate. I don't know the logic on how Microsoft generates that number or on how I can make the post.

Do you have any idea? Or can you point me in the right direction? I've given up.

Thanks,
monktim

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;
      }
   }
}
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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
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(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.