Win32::IEAutomation - Getting all links in a page

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

I'm trying to use Win32::IEAutomation and have a problem. After going to the page, I'm trying to get all of the links on it using

my@links=$ie->getAllLinks();

This returns a list with elements in the form of Win32::IEAutomation::Element=HASH(0x19e698c)

Having read the doc for Win32::IEAutomation, I thought that

my$link=$ie->linkUrl($links[0]);

would return the link for the first element in the list (or any element depending on the index), but I get

Can't locate object method "linkUrl" via package "Win32::IEAutomation" at test line 20.

Obviously I've misunderstood something and would appreciate any guidance.

Comment on Win32::IEAutomation - Getting all links in a page

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Re: Win32::IEAutomation - Getting all links in a page by binf-jw (Monk) on Oct 18, 2008 at 17:48 UTC
From looking at the documentation ( Can't test this as am currently away from my windows box ). Looks like you need to do something like this: `my @links = $ie->getAllLinks(); $links[0]->linkUrl();` [download] linkUrl is a method of the 'link obj' not 'Win32::IEAutomation as stated: "Methods supported for link object". The object returned by 'getAllLinks' is 'Win32::IEAutomation::Element' which is the link obj. `@links` is therefore an array of objects 'hence the hash reference (How perl OO works see link below)'. You can peek inside what a ref variable is by using `Data::Dumper` Like so: `use Data::Dumper; print Dumper( $link[0] );` [download] For more information have a look at at some of the perldoc tutorial on obj's perltoot understanding the insides really aids in the understanding of using them. Hope that helps - John Ps. use < code > tag in future when listing code in a post.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Win32::IEAutomation - Getting all links in a page by ikegami (Patriarch) on Oct 18, 2008 at 17:43 UTC
The docs say `linkUrl` is a method for link objects, so I presume that should be `my $url = $links[0]->linkUrl();` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Win32::IEAutomation - Getting all links in a page by Anonymous Monk on Oct 18, 2008 at 17:47 UTC
You presume correctly!! Thanks for the reply.	[reply]
Re^3: Win32::IEAutomation - Getting all links in a page by ikegami (Patriarch) on Oct 18, 2008 at 19:12 UTC
By the way, if you want the urls and don't have any other use for the link objects, you can use `my @urls = map { $_->linkUrl() } $ie->getAllLinks();` [download]	[reply] [d/l]