Form won't post

everlast88az has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

HI I am trying to make my script login to a web server and then go to the posting page I want and automate a posting there. I have been looking over this thing forever it logs in and navigates however it will not produce the POST result and I cannot see it on the board after I run the script. Even though the response returns an OK. So I am not sure what to do. I am stuck :( Any help would be great

use HTTP::Cookies;
use WWW::Mechanize;
use LWP::UserAgent;
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
$mech->cookie_jar(HTTP::Cookies->new());
my $url = "****";
my $url2 = "****;
my $username = "***";
my $password = "*****";

$subject = "dhdfghdfghfgh";
$message = "blah";

$mech->get($url);
#my @names = $mech->forms();
$mech->form_number(2);
$mech->field(username => $username);
$mech->field(password => $password);
$mech->click();

$mech->success or die "post failed: ",
 print  $mech->response->status_line;

$mech->get($url2);
#my @names = $mech->forms();
$mech->form_number(2);
$mech->field(subject => $subject);
$mech->field(message => $message);
$mech->click();


$mech->success or die "post failed: ",
 print  $mech->response->status_line;
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Comment on Form won't post Download Code

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Re: Form won't post by missingthepoint (Friar) on Apr 06, 2009 at 08:50 UTC
I suspect it isn't working because you're `$mech->get`ing `$url2`. I don't think you want to do that - after you've POSTed with `$mech->click`, `$mech`'s "current url" (`$mech->uri`) will change. Try removing the line `$mech->get($url2);` and see if it works. I can see a few other problems with your code: You don't need to `use LWP::UserAgent`; WWW::Mechanize is a subclass of it which means it `use` it for you. Don't think you need to `use HTTP::Cookies` either; I can do `$mech->cookie_jar(HTTP::Cookies->new());` only using WWW::Mechanize. `undef $lunches{free}`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Form won't post by Gangabass (Vicar) on Apr 06, 2009 at 08:59 UTC
I think you need to check $mech->content() after first submit. May be you did't pass autorization. For some sites you need to use button argument, and some sites require to send also x and y position of the mouse. Also some site may use JavaScript. So please check if your target site works with JavaScript disabled.	[reply]