[Solved] Checking onclick attribute of an anchor tag with WWW:::Mechanize::Firefox

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

Hello Monks,

I am trying to check the onclick attribute of anchor tags with WWW::Mechanize::Firefox. Here is what I have explored so far...

At first, I thought I'd check the attrs property of WWW::Mechanize::Link. Something like this:

my @links = $mech->find_all_links(url_regex => 'asdf.html');

foreach my $link (@links) {
    print $link->attrs()->{onclick};
}
[download]

Unfortunately, that did not work. Further exploration yielded the reason--the make_link subroutine in WWW::Mechanize::Firefox always just initializes attrs with an empty hashref.

No problem, I thought--maybe I could just patch that functionality in. Not much success with that either, though--I'm having a tough time understanding how the MozRepl::RemoteObject module works. I thought something like this sound work:

my @links = $mech->find_all_links_dom(url_regex => 'asdf.html');

foreach my $link (@links) {
    print $link->{onclick};
}
[download]

Or:

my @links = $mech->find_all_links_dom(url_regex => 'asdf.html');

foreach my $link (@links) {
    print $link->__attr('onclick');
}
[download]

Or at least:

my @links = $mech->find_all_links_dom(url_regex => 'asdf.html');

foreach my $link (@links) {
    # Neither of the following work either...
    print Dumper($link->__keys);
    print Dumper(keys %$link);
}
[download]

This is the error message I receive. It seems like a Javascript error, but that's all I can surmise...

MozRepl::RemoteObject: TypeError: obj.hasOwnProperty is not a function
+ at /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.1/MozRepl/RemoteObject.pm line 1509
[download]

What am I missing? Is there a simpler way to go about this?

EDIT:

Solved! Just to clarify, I was looking for just the text of the onclick attribute of links. When I was doing $link->{onclick}, I was getting the compiled Javascript of the onclick attribute. To get just the simple text, all I had to do was $link->getAttribute('onclick').

Thanks all!

Comment on [Solved] Checking onclick attribute of an anchor tag with WWW:::Mechanize::Firefox Select or Download Code

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Re: Checking onclick attribute of an anchor tag with WWW:::Mechanize::Firefox by bitingduck (Deacon) on Mar 05, 2012 at 09:12 UTC
I haven't used it, but reading way down in the examples in the docs, it looks like you might want the "$mech->clickables" method. It's listed near the bottom of "Form Methods" It gives the example: `print "You could click on\n"; for my $el ($mech->clickables) { print $el->{innerHTML}, "\n"; };` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Checking onclick attribute of an anchor tag with WWW:::Mechanize::Firefox by Riales (Hermit) on Mar 05, 2012 at 10:37 UTC
Hi, bitingduck! Thanks for the reply. I hadn't noticed the `clickables` method before so I went ahead and tried it out. Progress! Now there is something to dump when I check `$link->{onclick}`, but it's a blessed MozRepl::RemoteObject. It's pretty massive so I won't post it here (unless requested). I still can't figure out how to just see what the onclick attribute is though...	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Checking onclick attribute of an anchor tag with WWW:::Mechanize::Firefox by Anonymous Monk on Mar 05, 2012 at 10:56 UTC
I still can't figure out how to just see what the onclick attribute is though... Try `$node->getAttribute`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Checking onclick attribute of an anchor tag with WWW:::Mechanize::Firefox by Corion (Patriarch) on Mar 05, 2012 at 13:32 UTC
Your code is good, but I'm not sure what you want to do: `#!perl -w use strict; use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox; my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(); $mech->update_html(<<HTML); <html> <h1>Test</h1> <a href="http://google.de">Google</a> <a href="asdf.html" onclick="javascript:alert('hello');">Say Hello</a> </html> HTML my @links = $mech->find_all_links_dom(url_regex => 'asdf.html'); foreach my $link (@links) { #print $link->{onclick}; print $link->{click}; };` [download] This gives you the `onclick` attribute, but that attribute is a (compiled) Javascript function. If you want to get at the text, use `-getAttribute` function (see the DOM documentation). MozRepl::RemoteObject is a bridge between Perl and the (DOM) functions and data structures of Firefox, so if you want to do deeper work, you will have to learn about the DOM and Firefox.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Checking onclick attribute of an anchor tag with WWW:::Mechanize::Firefox by Riales (Hermit) on Mar 05, 2012 at 17:28 UTC
Hi Corion, Ah, perfect--`getAttribute` was what I was looking for. It never occurred to me to try the DOM documentation. I guess I'll know for next time now! Thanks!	[reply] [d/l]