Mechanize Cannot Detect Forms

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

I'm using WWW::Mechanize version 1.66. When I do this,

$ mech-dump url
[download]

this shows 3 forms. But when I try to run this code,

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use WWW::Mechanize;

my $m = WWW::Mechanize->new( autocheck => 1 );
$m->agent_alias( 'Windows Mozilla' );
$m->cookie_jar( HTTP::Cookies->new );

$m->get( 'same_url_as_mech-dump' );
print Dumper ( $m->forms() );
$m->submit_form( form_number => 1, fields => $fields );
[download]

Here's the output.

There is no form numbered 1 ...
[download]

Also, there is no output from $m->forms(). This is weird because mech-dump was able to find the forms. Any help?

Comment on Mechanize Cannot Detect Forms Select or Download Code

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Re: Mechanize Cannot Detect Forms by roboticus (Chancellor) on Jun 27, 2011 at 23:56 UTC
Some websites do different things for different clients. I don't know what agent mech-dump is using, but it lets you specify it, so try telling it the same agent as the one in your script, like: `$ mech-dump --agent-alias='Windows Mozilla' url` [download] Note: I don't work on HTML/HTTP applications... Update: I notice that you put single quotes inside your $m->get() call. You're not putting a variable in single quotes there, did you? ...roboticus When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Mechanize Cannot Detect Forms by Marshall (Canon) on Jun 28, 2011 at 00:04 UTC
I would leave off this: agent_alias( 'Windows Mozilla' ) and use the default. I am not sure that this string without version info would be recognized as a known browser. When I am pretending to be something too stupid to know Java, I use: `$ua->agent("Mozilla/4.76 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)");` You can definitely get different results depending upon what kind of browser you claim to be (this is not always the case, but it does happen).	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Mechanize Cannot Detect Forms by ajose (Acolyte) on Jun 28, 2011 at 12:53 UTC
Are you getting any output while dumping the forms using `print Dumper ( $m->forms() );`? If this step works fine, try to select the form only with the form number by discarding `fields` parameter.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Mechanize Cannot Detect Forms by Anonymous Monk on Jun 28, 2011 at 07:06 UTC
Any help? Turn on debugging and compare the http mech-dump sends, to what your program sends	[reply]