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

I have a site I parse using this fantastic module. However, the form I am using is not labled so I am forced to use the form number. The problem that is arising now is, they have a form that RANDOMLY appears some time (an advertisement) which throws my number off.

Is there a way to make it automagically find the form with a given field (say the field "shopwizard")?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: how smart www::mechanize can be?
by davidrw (Prior) on Mar 28, 2006 at 19:30 UTC
    y.. WWW::Mechanize uses HTML::Form underneath which has a find_input method.. 
      my $form = $mech->current_form;
  warn $form->find_input( 'shopwizard' );

    [download]
    Update: added loop-age: 
    my $form;
foreach ( $mech->forms ){
  if( $_->find_input('shopwizard') ){
    $form = $_;
    last;
  }
}

# OR (yet another way; slightly less efficient):

my @shopwizardForms = grep { $_->find_input( 'shopwizard' ) } $mech->f
+orms;
# or just:
my ($shopwizardForm) = grep { $_->find_input( 'shopwizard' ) } $mech->
+forms;

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      Hi. I tried 
      my $form;
foreach ( $mech->forms ){
  if( $_->find_input( 'shopwizard' )){
    $form = $_;
    last;
  }
}
print "---------------------- form was $form";

        $mech->submit_form(
        form_number  => $form,
        fields       => {
           shopwizard   => "Winter Love Usuki Set",
           criteria     => 'exact'
        }
       );

      [download]
      and it's erroring out now. When I print the $form, it prints HTML::Form=HASH(..). So if the $form has this, could this mean it's not passing the right information to my form?
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[d/l]
        my $forms = $mech->forms();

my $form_num;
for (0..$#$forms) {
   if ($forms->[$_]->find_input('shopwizard')) {
      $form_num = $_ + 1;
      last;
   }
}

die("Unable to find shopwizard form\n")
   unless $form_num;

$mech->submit_form(
   form_number  => $form_num,
   fields       => {
      shopwizard   => "Winter Love Usuki Set",
      criteria     => 'exact'
   }
);

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