I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to write a perl script that opens a browser (Netscape), and can click on links, fill out forms, etc.

My company is deploying a web-based application and I'm on the team responsible for automating the GUI testing. We've looked at Rational and Silk, and one of our guys has fashioned a magic script-driven test harness (using VB of all things!) to control IE. It's pretty cool, but our application supports Netscape too.

I want to find a Perl solution, because that's the Lingua Franca of our department, so I ask the question here: can I control Netscape from the client side using Perl modules that already exist?

I've searched both the Monastery and CPAN, but I can only find things that deal with Mozilla and Netscape from a rather more peripheral view (i.e. manipulating Bookmarks and history lists, etc). I've used LWP and all sorts of HTTP and HTML modules for processing requests and responses, but that's not the problem. The problem is seeing if Netscape will correctly render the output from the application.

I'd supply sample code, but that presupposes that I know whether such a thing is possible!

In reply to Control the Web browser from the client-side? by Maestro_007

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.