webinject rewrite?

I stumbled accross webinject last week because we are monitoring our services with Nagios and a colleague, who want's to check a service needs a login/logout.

When I looked at the source code I was a bit shocked ;) and I get the feeling that I need to rewrite the whole stuff.

I already found a newer version in CPAN Webinject but it still has many of the flaws I want to get rid of.

Unfortunately I can't spent too much time on it (I'm not paid for that) :( and I don't yet know anything about the GUI part. So I thought someone here might be interested in helping?

Here are the main drawbacks I found:

Despite the statement in the documentation that the testcase files are XML, they are not. For example one can not use "&" for an ampersand, but has to write "&" which will make any XML tool croak.
Same is true for "<" which has to be written as \<
This "misuse" of XML::Simple, which is sed for parsing, is achieved by rewriting every "&" and every "\<" in the files by "{AMPERSAND}" and "{LESSTHAN}". As a consequence these 2 Strings, should they appear anywhere in the file, will be replaced.
The rewrite is done EVERY run and requires a new file in the filesystem.
The older version 1.41 (I didn't check the CPAN version) does a second rewrite if the testcase file contains just one case instead of using XML::Simple properly. (ForceArray => 1)

s$$([},&%#}/&/]+}%&{})*;#$&&s&&$^X.($'^"%]=\&(|?*{%
+.+=%;.#_}\&"^"-+%*).}%:##%}={~=~:.")&e&&s""`$''`"e

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Re: webinject rewrite? by cgoldberg (Initiate) on Dec 08, 2011 at 13:14 UTC
Hi. I am the original author of WebInject. The website (webinject.org) is currently outdated. The best place to get info is via CPAN and the new maintainer. There is also a discussion group (http://groups.google.com/group/webinject) that the new maintainer responds on. (perhaps you could re-post over there?) I apologize for the state of the WebInject 1.4 source code :) I originally wrote it nearly a decade ago as a novice Perl hacker. It's a little mind-boggling. I have since moved on to other languages, but I still have fond memories of the Perl community. happy hacking, -Corey Goldberg	[reply]
Re^2: webinject rewrite? by Skeeve (Parson) on Dec 08, 2011 at 13:26 UTC
I originally wrote it nearly a decade ago as a novice Perl hacker ;) Exactly what I thought two days ago when I looked at the code. P.S. And you just registered here to reply? Thanks a lot. `s$$([},&%#}/&/]+}%&{});#$&&s&&$^X.($'^"%]=\&(\|?{%` `+`.+=%;.#_}\&"^"-+%*).}%:##%}={~=~:.")&e&&s""`$''`"e	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: webinject rewrite? by moritz (Cardinal) on Dec 08, 2011 at 10:29 UTC
It sounds to me that not a full rewrite is in order, just a change to a certain subsystem (though I don't know how deep the implications of such changes go). Perl 6 - second systems done right	[reply]
Re^2: webinject rewrite? by Skeeve (Parson) on Dec 08, 2011 at 13:23 UTC
I hope so. But as I said: I don't know the GUI part yet. But in any case, it will be a big issue if the configuration files now require real XML. So to the "outside world" it would appear as a major change. `s$$([},&%#}/&/]+}%&{});#$&&s&&$^X.($'^"%]=\&(\|?{%` `+`.+=%;.#_}\&"^"-+%*).}%:##%}={~=~:.")&e&&s""`$''`"e	[reply] [d/l] [select]