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

How do you get the URL of the page after your last request via www::mechanize? I was reading the DOCS and it looks like $mech->uri() should hold the URL but all it does is error out with 
Use of uninitialized value in string at bot.pl line 194.

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I have a feeling this site occassionally redirects to an IP address when the traffic is at high tide and I need to test whether or not my URLs are still accessible. 
   my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
   $mech->get($url);
   print $mech->uri();

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"Age is nothing more than an inaccurate number bestowed upon us at birth as just another means for others to judge and classify us"

sulfericacid

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Re: How to get back the url of a page
by cormanaz (Deacon) on May 16, 2007 at 16:29 UTC
    Hmm this is more of a challenge than I expected.

    You can get the response object from the mech request with $mech->{res}. HTTP::Response has a method $response->is_redirect that is supposed to tell you if it was a redirect, but when I tried that, i.e. $mech->{res}->is_redirect(), with a known redirect it returned null. Maybe some other monk knows why it doesn't work.

    Anyway assuming the redirect is done with a refresh header, you can tell by getting $mech->{res}->header{'refresh'} I don't have a javascript direct to test it with, but I suspect it might not work for that

    Cheers

    Steve

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Re: How to get back the url of a page
by xhunter (Sexton) on May 16, 2007 at 17:11 UTC

    $mech->uri works as you would like for me.

    Would you like to provide more details on the error. What does line 194 of bot.pl look like?

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      I tried $mech->uri() and it gave the original page, not the one redirected to. Sulfericacid wants the uri of the page mech winds-up on after processing any redirects.
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        cormanaz is right. This image site sometimes redirects images to an IP address when the servers are getting high traffic. I need to be able to load the original image URL and detect whether or not it's going to redirect me. If so, I need to know what the address is of the image.

        This is my current set up. 

        foreach my $pic (@pics)
{
   my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
   $mech->agent_alias( 'Windows IE 6' );
   $mech->get($pic);
   my $location = $mech->uri();

   push(@final_pics, "$location");
   print "\ntesting $pic with location $location";

}

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        "Age is nothing more than an inaccurate number bestowed upon us at birth as just another means for others to judge and classify us"

        sulfericacid
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