in reply to use WWW::Mechanize or LWP to interface with WEB

Something like this?

use WWW::Mechanize;
use strict;

my $url = 'http://server/path/to/form.html';
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();

$mech->get($url);
die "can't get page!" 
  unless $mech->success &&
         $mech->content =~ /look for something/;

$mech->submit_form(with_fields => {
     tree_fn  => 'learn',
     tree_ln  => 'perl',
     tree_gen => [ option => 'M' ]
  });
die "can't submit form!" 
  unless $mech->success && 
         $mech->content =~ /something useful/;

[download]

(untested - nothing to test it against ;)

-David

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: use WWW::Mechanize or LWP to interface with WEB
by learnperl (Acolyte) on Nov 16, 2007 at 06:35 UTC
    Thanks alot David, One issue I had before was that the html code taken from the site that I am running against of (http://www.ancestry.com/) is using
    <input id="blabla"/> instead of <field name="blabla/>... How can we handle this issue. I tried the code that you submitted but I was getting a similar issue that I got before which was
    There is no form with the requested fields at D:/PerlWorkSpace/Research/Genealogy/gen.pl line 226 Died at D:/Perl/lib/WWW/Mechanize.pm line 1715, <STDIN> line 1.
[reply]
      No field names, eh?

      Try something like this: 

      use WWW::Mechanize;
use strict;

my $url = 'http://server/path/to/form.html';
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();

$mech->get($url);
die "can't get page!" 
  unless $mech->success &&
         $mech->content =~ /look for something/;

die "can't find form!"
  unless $mech->form_number(0);

my @values = ('learn', 'perl', [option => 'M']);
die "couldn't fill out form!"
  unless $mech->set_visible(@values) == 3;

$mech->submit;
die "can't submit form!" 
  unless $mech->success && 
         $mech->content =~ /something useful/;

      [download]

      Any better?

      -David

[reply]
[d/l]
        Thanks David,
        Good news and not so good news, I don't get the error anymore but I nothing happens either, I had the feeling that WWW::Mechanize should fire up the web browser... Have I misunderstood...?
        One other thing, If you take look at source of $url the website has a "form tag" before the form that I want to use... in that case should be using (2)..? 
        my $url = 'http://www.ancestry.com/';
my $mechObject = WWW::Mechanize->new();

$mechObject->get($url);
die "can't get page!" 
  unless $mechObject->success;
  
die "can't find form!"
  unless $mechObject->form_number(0);

my @values = ('learn', 'perl', [option => 'M']);
die "couldn't fill out form!"
  unless $mechObject->set_visible(@values) == 3;

$mechObject->submit;
die "can't submit form!" 
  unless $mechObject->success;

        [download]
        learnperl
[reply]
[d/l]

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