posting with HTTP::Request::Common

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

I'm trying to Post to a web site using the following code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use HTTP::Request::Common qw(POST);
use LWP::UserAgent;
$ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $req = POST 'http://www.sfarmls.com/scripts/mgrqispi.dll',
       [ APPNAME => 'Sanfrancisco',
          PRGNAME => 'MLSLogin',
          ARGUMENTS => ('-ASS','-AA'),
        ];
print $ua->request($req)->as_string;
[download]

But when I do, I get an HTML file from www.sfarmls.com telling me that I'm using an invalid entry point.
However, I can easily access this site with the following telnet commands:

POST /scripts/mgrqispi.dll HTTP/1.1
Host: www.sfarmls.com
Content-Length: 56
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

APPNAME=Sanfrancisco&PRGNAME=MLSLogin&ARGUMENTS=-ASS,-AA
[download]

I'm a little confused why www.sfarmls.com is OK with the telnet access but not with the perl routine access.
Also, the perl routine directs the response to the terminal output. How can I direct the response to a variable within the perl program? Thanks, Matt

Comment on posting with HTTP::Request::Common Select or Download Code

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Re: posting with HTTP::Request::Common by ikegami (Patriarch) on Nov 07, 2006 at 01:21 UTC
`[ APPNAME => 'Sanfrancisco', PRGNAME => 'MLSLogin', ARGUMENTS => ('-ASS','-AA'), ];` [download] is the same as `[ APPNAME => 'Sanfrancisco', PRGNAME => 'MLSLogin', ARGUMENTS => '-ASS' -AA => undef, ];` [download] You were probably thinking of `[ APPNAME => 'Sanfrancisco', PRGNAME => 'MLSLogin', ARGUMENTS => ['-ASS','-AA'], ];` [download] But that's not right either, since array refs are used to indicate the argument is a file to send. The docs doesn't give an example which has multiple arguments with the same name, but since an array is used I figure there's nothing special to it. `[ APPNAME => 'Sanfrancisco', PRGNAME => 'MLSLogin', ARGUMENTS => '-ASS', ARGUMENTS => '-AA', ];` [download] Update: Oh wait, in your telnet example, there's only one ARGUMENTS fields with a single value. `[ APPNAME => 'Sanfrancisco', PRGNAME => 'MLSLogin', ARGUMENTS => '-ASS,-AA', ];` [download] or `[ APPNAME => 'Sanfrancisco', PRGNAME => 'MLSLogin', ARGUMENTS => join(', ', '-ASS', '-AA'), ];` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: posting with HTTP::Request::Common by dorko (Prior) on Nov 07, 2006 at 01:35 UTC
While ikegami tells you how to do it, I'll tell you that I had to add the following line to the end of your script to see what was going on: `print $req->as_string;` Cheers, Brent -- Yeah, I'm a Delt.	[reply] [d/l]