POST

There is no simple procedural interface for posting data to a WWW serv
+er.  You
must use the object oriented interface for this. The most common POST
operation is to access a WWW form application:

  use LWP::UserAgent;
  $ua = new LWP::UserAgent;

  my $req = new HTTP::Request 'POST','http://www.perl.com/cgi-bin/BugG
+limpse';
  $req->content_type('application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
  $req->content('match=www&errors=0');

  my $res = $ua->request($req);
  print $res->as_string;

Lazy people use the HTTP::Request::Common module to set up a suitable
POST request message (it handles all the escaping issues) and has a
suitable default for the content_type:

  use HTTP::Request::Common qw(POST);
  use LWP::UserAgent;
  $ua = new LWP::UserAgent;

  my $req = POST 'http://www.perl.com/cgi-bin/BugGlimpse',
                [ search => 'www', errors => 0 ];

  print $ua->request($req)->as_string;

The lwp-request program (alias POST) that is distributed with the
library can also be used for posting data.
[download]

Ah the lazy approach looks pretty good to me as well =)

Thanks, where did you find this? The only place I located any information on LWP was at perldoc.com.

Into a command prompt type:

perldoc perldoc
[download]

and you will learn how to get documentation of Perl things installed on your system. Not to be underestimated is that you get documented the version that you actually have installed. And if you become competent (which is mainly a question of learning to use "/pattern" then "n") at finding stuff in those pages you will generally find it faster to find things in that documentation than through websites.

You can find the lwpcook documentation on perldoc.com by typing lwpcook into the search box. lwpcook is an LWP CookBook; it contains "recipes" for common tasks involving LWP that you can use in own code.

On your own system, since you have LWP installed, you should be able to read the lwpcook documentation by typing perldoc lwpcook on the command line.

davorg wrote a good series of articles in Perl Month explaining how to get documentation using the command perldoc.

They start in Issue #1

sub getLinkParse
   {  use LWP::UserAgent; use HTTP::Request::Common;
      $sentence = "This is a test sentence.";
      $response = (new LWP::UserAgent)->request(POST
            'http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/link1/construct-page-4
+.cgi#submit',
            [ Sentence      => $sentence,
              Constituents  => "1", <<<< this is a checkbox
              NullLinks     => "1", <<<< this is a checkbox
              AllLinkages   => "OFF",
              LinkDisplay   => "on",
              ShortLength   => "6",
              PageFile      => "/docs/submit-sentence-4.html",
              InputFile     => "/scripts/input-to-parser",
              Maintainer    => "sleator\@cs.cmu.edu" ] );

      exit -1 unless $response->is_success;
      $_ = $response->{_content};
      print $_;
}

This is the origianl form on the site:

<FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="/cgi-bin/link1/construct-page-4.cgi#submit
+">
<textarea name="Sentence" MAXLENGTH=200  wrap=virtual rows=3 cols=70><
+/textarea><br>
<INPUT TYPE="checkbox" NAME="Constituents" CHECKED>Show constituent tr
+ee &nbsp;
<INPUT TYPE="checkbox" NAME="NullLinks" CHECKED>Allow null links &nbsp
+;
<INPUT TYPE="checkbox" NAME="AllLinkages" OFF>Show all linkages &nbsp;
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="LinkDisplay" VALUE="on">
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="ShortLength" VALUE="6">
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="PageFile" VALUE="/docs/submit-sentence-4.ht
+ml">
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="InputFile" VALUE="/scripts/input-to-parser"
+>
<INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="Maintainer" VALUE="sleator@cs.cmu.edu">
<br>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit one sentence">
<br>
</FORM>
[download]

Checkboxes without explicit VALUE fields return "ON". At least, in web browsers that follow the specifications. :)

Try that instead of "1".

Thanks for the suggestion re checkboxes. I tried "ON", "CHECKED", "1", "Dammit" -- none of them worked. In general, where can I find more information about this? I'm sure my next problem will have radio buttons or something else I don't know how to do! ...