Save PHP-generated image with Win32 IE Mechanize

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

I am trying to use Win32-IE-Mechanize to open a webpage that has an image in it that is generated by PHP.

I have written a script to save the image, but it winds up saving another html page that has a link to the image - here is the perl:

use Win32::IE::Mechanize;
use Time::HiRes;

$ie = Win32::IE::Mechanize->new( visible => 1 ) ;
$ie->get( 'http://localhost/image/myimage.php' ) ;


while($ie->{agent}->Document->readyState !~ /complete/i){ sleep(0.1); 
+}
$content = $ie->content;

save_image($content);

sub save_image {
    
    my ($content) = @_;
    
    open my $out_fh, ">", "image.png" or die $!;
    binmode $out_fh;
    print $out_fh $content;
    close $out_fh;
}
[download]

here is the php myimage.php that generates the image:

<?php
$my_img = imagecreate( 200, 80 );
$background = imagecolorallocate( $my_img, 0, 0, 255 );
$text_colour = imagecolorallocate( $my_img, 255, 255, 0 );
$line_colour = imagecolorallocate( $my_img, 128, 255, 0 );
imagestring( $my_img, 4, 30, 25, "test image",
  $text_colour );
imagesetthickness ( $my_img, 5 );
imageline( $my_img, 30, 45, 165, 45, $line_colour );

header( "Content-type: image/png" );
imagepng( $my_img );
imagecolordeallocate( $line_color );
imagecolordeallocate( $text_color );
imagecolordeallocate( $background );
imagedestroy( $my_img );
?>
[download]

and the original html page that displays the image:

<img src="myimage.php" alt="Image created by a PHP script" width="200"
+ height="80">
[download]

when I try to save the png image i get a png file that contains the following html

<HTML><HEAD></HEAD>
<BODY leftMargin=0 scroll=no topMargin=0><EMBED height="100%" type=ima
+ge/x-png width="100%" src=http://localhost/image/myimage.php fullscre
+en="yes"></BODY></HTML>
[download]

so instead of saving the png image, I am getting HTML with a link the png image.

any ideas???

Comment on Save PHP-generated image with Win32 IE Mechanize Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Save PHP-generated image with Win32 IE Mechanize by Corion (Patriarch) on Feb 10, 2010 at 08:00 UTC
Most likely, you (or your browser) are sending the wrong HTTP headers when retrieving the image. Use a tool like Wireshark to inspect the network traffic and then replicate that traffic from within Perl. If you're not tied to Internet Explorer, I find my module WWW::Mechanize::Firefox to be more accessible, because Firefox has the Live HTTP Headers that allow easier inspection.	[reply]
Re^2: Save PHP-generated image with Win32 IE Mechanize by casimo (Sexton) on Feb 11, 2010 at 03:17 UTC
Thanks Corion I added some request headers and checked what was happening in Wireshark - it looks like Win32 IE Mechanize is simply ignore the request headers. When I do the same thing with WWW Mechanize it sends the proper headers and save the actual image.	[reply]
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