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

Hello monks...

There was an interesting discussion about automating tests by driving the browser recently here: Using Perl to Test a Web App that uses Javascript

diotalevi and PodMaster imply that it is possible to actually execute the Javascript from a program, but after reading the documentation, I fail to understand how it's done.

Being a total Javascript lizard, I did a Super Search and then stole some excellent test code from vagnerr's scratchpad.

So my question is: is it possible to write a script in Perl that will automatically hit the "test1", "test2", etc. buttons by exercising the "onclick="javascript:addItem..." thingies in the code below? 

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Test form</title>
    <script type="text/JavaScript">
    <!--
      function storeCaret (textEl){
        if (textEl.createTextRange){
          textEl.caretPos = document.selection.createRange().duplicate
+();
        }
      }

      function insertAtCaret (textEl, text){
        if (textEl.createTextRange && textEl.caretPos) {
          var caretPos = textEl.caretPos;
          caretPos.text = caretPos.text.charAt(caretPos.text.length - 
+1) == ' ' ?
                          text + ' ' : text;
        }else{
          textEl.value  += text;
        }
      }

      function addItem(label){
        //document.display.showStuff.value += "%"+label+"%";
        insertAtCaret(document.display.showStuff,label);
      }


    -->
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Test Form</h1>
    <form name="display" method="post" action="">
      <input type="button" value="test1" onclick="javascript:addItem('
+TEST')">
      <input type="button" value="test2" onclick="javascript:addItem('
+ABCD')">
      <input type="button" value="test3" onclick="javascript:addItem('
+RGFD')">
      <input type="button" value="test4" onclick="javascript:addItem('
+HGFD')">
<br>
      <textarea name="showStuff" rows="5" cols="80" wrap="off" onselec
+t="storeCaret(this);" ond
blclick="storeCaret(this);" onclick="storeCaret(this);" onkeyup="store
+Caret(this)"></textarea>
    </form>
  </body>
</html>

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Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Further question: automating Javascript with Perl in browser?
by diotalevi (Canon) on Jun 11, 2004 at 16:05 UTC
    I said that it would be desirable for some JavaScript to execute from the context of something WWW::Mechanize-like. For thorough testing I eventually came around and thought that the browser itself has to be scripted since it is an integral part of the application being tested. If you are running this on a Win32 machine then you would use whatever COM hooks are required to drive Internet Explorer and then whatever else is appropriate for the other browsers.
[reply]
Re: Further question: automating Javascript with Perl in browser?
by Fletch (Bishop) on Jun 11, 2004 at 16:02 UTC

    Use your favorite HTML parser to extract the onclick attributes, and then run the code through something like JavaScript::SpiderMonkey.

[reply]
Re: Further question: automating Javascript with Perl in browser?
by PodMaster (Abbot) on Jun 11, 2004 at 18:32 UTC
[reply]
      I think I understand the example-- it does "eval" on some Javascript and passes the results back to the script that contains the eval statement, yes?

      But for my original example, I don't see what code I would have to eval, such that I actually cause the Javascript to do what it would do if I were to click on it with a mouse. The ultimate goal is to have a Perl script cause the same behavior in the browser as the mouse does.

      Apologies if I seem really dense here, this web stuff is definitely not my forte.
[reply]
Re: Further question: automating Javascript with Perl in browser?
by dba (Monk) on Jun 12, 2004 at 13:52 UTC
    WWW::Mechanize is your solution. click and click_button simulates exactly what happens when you 'click' on a button. Read this
[reply]

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