Accessing websites with Perl

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

I am trying to write a program that will download one web page from the internet based on user supplied settings and save it as a text file (the web page is a table of data). I have found several programs that troll through websites and their links and some that even download pictures but none that do what I want. Is there any literature you suggest reading (or already written programs that you suggest) to help me in my quest?

Comment on Accessing websites with Perl

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Accessing websites with Perl by jdporter (Paladin) on Feb 03, 2009 at 01:54 UTC
The LWP bundle has the basic building blocks; for complicated web interactions, you'll probably need WWW::Mechanize. Between the mind which plans and the hands which build, there must be a mediator... and this mediator must be the heart.	[reply]
Re: Accessing websites with Perl by planetscape (Chancellor) on Feb 03, 2009 at 14:43 UTC
Perhaps you would find the book Web Client Programming with Perl, full text freely available from the O'Reilly Open Books Project, useful in your quest. HTH, planetscape	[reply]
Re: Accessing websites with Perl by tomfahle (Priest) on Feb 03, 2009 at 16:17 UTC
As others mentioned before LWP and WWW::Mechanize are your friends. HTML::TableExtract is for extracting the content contained in tables within an HTML document, either as text or encoded element trees. Perl & LWP by Sean M. Burke is an online book covering the basics. Hope this helps, Thomas	[reply]