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

Howdy!

This is probably not a PERL question, but my problem right now is I don't know what I don't know...

I'm trying to automate submission of a web page that updates data based on which check marks you tick, and each entry will be a little different based on the number of items that come up each time.

I used HTTP::Recorder to capture one of these pages after clicking the save button which was:


GET /tree/16449623/hints?pid=20442759375&hf=Mtree&pn=1&hs=recent&msg=n
+tm&msgParams=7%7c15%7c22%7cUGhlYmUgQUxMWU5FfFJvYmVydCBISUNLUw2&mpid=2
+0442759375&nec=2 HTTP/1.1

[download]

I have scoured the page source looking for how that msgParams field was built and can't correlate what I see with the output captured. Even doing a search in the source for 'msgParams' came up empty.

So my first question is, have I provided enough data here to go on? Would providing the HTML source from one of the checkboxes help?

Next, how can I begin to decipher that block?

Thank you!

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Deciphering POST response recorded by HTTP::Recorder
by Anonymous Monk on Jun 08, 2013 at 23:31 UTC

    Next, how can I begin to decipher that block?

    That doesn't look like HTTP::Recorder output, this is HTTP::Recorder output 

    
$agent->get('http://perlmonks.com/?node_id=6364;user=jclh');
$agent->form_number(2);
$agent->field('length', '50');
$agent->field('orderby', 'rt');
$agent->field('user', 'jclh');
$agent->field('showtype', '');
$agent->field('start', '0');
$agent->click('sexisgood');

    [download]

    See Web Testing with HTTP::Recorder - Perl.com, Re^4: Unable to Install HTTP::Proxy

[reply]
[d/l]

      Sorry, I meant HTTP Recorder (the Windows version)... I started off trying to use HTTP::Recorder and when I started it and set the proxy through it I got some 'invalid compression' message when clicking the save button... so I floundered around and found www.westbrooksoftware.com HTTP Recorder.

[reply]

        Sorry, I meant HTTP Recorder (the Windows version)... I started off trying to use HTTP::Recorder and when I started it and set the proxy through it I got some 'invalid compression' message when clicking the save button... so I floundered around and found www.westbrooksoftware.com HTTP Recorder.

        If I were you I would switch to firefox , say http://getfirebug.com/, with LiveHTTPHeaders plugin, that way correlating between pages/buttons is simple

        On the 2nd part, well, HTTP is HTTP :) 

        #!/usr/bin/perl --
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dump;
use LWP;
my $str = q{GET /tree/16449623/hints?pid=20442759375&hf=Mtree&pn=1&hs=
+recent&msg=ntm&msgParams=7%7c15%7c22%7cUGhlYmUgQUxMWU5FfFJvYmVydCBISU
+NLUw2&mpid=20442759375&nec=2 HTTP/1.1},;
dd $str;
my $req = HTTP::Request->parse( $str );

dd $req;
dd $req->uri;
dd { $req->uri->query_form };

        [download]
[reply]
[d/l]

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