Corion was right earlier. WWW::Mechanize is the easiest interface to the things you want to do: submit (no-JavaScript) forms programmatically. Make sure the site you are querying allows it. Many (most?) sites do not permit any data scraping in their terms of service. Some will make allowances if you ask formally. Some have APIs to get the data in a robust/correct way.

update: CountZero's also right. You'll want HTML parsing after the form results return. HTML::TokeParser::Simple, HTML::TreeBuilder, or XML::LibXML for example. If you get stuck on one come back here.

In reply to Re: LWP::Simple... Enough for Site Query & Data Download? by Your Mother
in thread LWP::Simple... Enough for Site Query & Data Download? by cheech

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.