How to use HTML::Form

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

for this example:

   use HTML::Form;
   $v="http://search.cpan.org";
   $uv="";
$form = HTML::Form->parse($uv, $v);
if (defined($form)) {print $form->dump;}else
      {print "form is undefined\n";}
exit 0;
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always yields "form is undefined".
q1. what should the first argument in parse() be set to? Can't find it in the doc.
q2. Will setting this value properly define $form? If not, what will?

Thank you.

20050216 Janitored by Corion: Added code tags

2005-02-16 Edited by Arunbear: Changed title from 'html::form', as per Monastery guidelines

Comment on How to use HTML::Form Download Code

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Re: How to use HTML::Form
by moot (Chaplain) on Feb 16, 2005 at 03:29 UTC

perldoc HTML::Form

@forms = HTML::Form->parse( $html_document, $base_uri )
@forms = HTML::Form->parse( $response )
      The parse() class method will parse an HTML document
      and build up "HTML::Form" objects for each <form> ele
      ment found.  If called in scalar context only returns
      the first <form>.  Returns an empty list if there are
      no forms to be found.
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HTML::Form::parse returns an array in list context or the first form in scalar context. Since you don't have any forms to parse, the first form is undefined, so the answer to q2 is "probably".

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Re: How to use HTML::Form
by PodMaster (Abbot) on Feb 16, 2005 at 03:37 UTC

q1. what should the first argument in parse() be set to? Can't find it in the doc.

q2. Will setting this value properly define $form? If not, what will?

The documentation for HTML::Form is here, I suggest you RTFM.

MJD says "you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!"
I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6.x and 5.8.x -- I take requests (README).
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Re: How to use HTML::Form
by anykey (Initiate) on Feb 16, 2005 at 14:52 UTC

Clarification: When I said "can't find it in the doc", I didn't mean I could not find the doc. I meant I read the doc and did not find an explanation or example that explained how to set the content of arg1.

So, comments like RTFM are worthless to me and anyone else reading this q&a seeking advice and clarification.

This is just a snippet. The simple question "What are you trying to do?" renders the simple reply "To fill & submit a html form." As an example, let's say I'm tyring to fill the search string for the search.cpan.org page and retrieve results.

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