Adding to Content on LWP Post

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

I have a LWP object in which I have to add aditional content to the post. For example:

      my $response = $browser->post($url,
          [ 'Encounter1847760942' => "$enc_id",
            'SelectType1847760942' => "StartOnSelect",
            'Begin1847760942' => "01/02/2005",
            'DaysBack1847760942' => "3",
            'ProcedureSearchText1847760942' => "",
            'EncounterOptionSelected' => "false" ], @ns_headers);
[download]

There are additional fields that I have to add to the content portion of the post. How do I do this?

$response = $browser->content($poststring);
# where $poststring = 'checkbox'=>\"1\"" etc....
[download]

This does not seem to work. Am I missing something simple here? Thanks Rob

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Re: Adding to Content on LWP Post by blazar (Canon) on Jan 11, 2005 at 11:29 UTC
`$response = $browser->content($poststring); # where $poststring = 'checkbox'=>\"1\"" etc....` [download] Whatever... are you sure you don't want e.g. `# $poststring = ['checkbox'=> ...]` Also, IMHO you'd better use alternate delimiters so to avoid excessive and error-prone escaping.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Adding to Content on LWP Post by Util (Priest) on Jan 18, 2005 at 18:24 UTC
Once you call the `post()` method, your request is transmitted to the web server; it is too late to modify it. You need to store the form data in a structure that you can add to at runtime, and then use that structure in the `post()` call. Try these array-based techniques to initialize and manipulate your form data: my @form_data_pairs = ( 'Encounter1847760942' => $enc_id, 'SelectType1847760942' => 'StartOnSelect', 'Begin1847760942' => '01/02/2005', 'DaysBack1847760942' => '3', 'ProcedureSearchText1847760942' => '', 'EncounterOptionSelected' => 'false', ); # ... Code to handle dynamic options would go here ... my $cb = ($some_dynamic_flag) ? 1 : 0; push @form_data_pairs, ( 'checkbox' => $cb, 'something' => 'Something else', ); push @form_data_pairs, ('checkbox2' => 1) if $some_other_flag; my $response = $browser->post($url, \@form_data_pairs, @ns_headers); [download] If the form has no duplicate data elements, and the receiving application is not neurotic about parameter order, then hash-based techniques may be clearer and more flexible: my %form_data = ( 'Encounter1847760942' => $enc_id, 'SelectType1847760942' => 'StartOnSelect', 'Begin1847760942' => '01/02/2005', 'DaysBack1847760942' => '3', 'ProcedureSearchText1847760942' => '', 'EncounterOptionSelected' => 'false', ); # ... Code to handle dynamic options would go here ... $form_data{'checkbox'} = ($some_dynamic_flag) ? 1 : 0; $form_data{'something'} = 'Something else'; $form_data{'checkbox2'} = 1 if $some_other_flag; my $response = $browser->post($url, [ %form_data ], @ns_headers); [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]