[Melbourne-pm] LWP::UserAgent to post to web form
Shlomi Fish
shlomif at iglu.org.il
Wed Nov 15 02:24:08 PST 2006
On Wednesday 15 November 2006 10:10, Peter Machell wrote:
> Newbie alert. Help appreciated.
>
> I'm trying to script data to send to a web form.
>
> Please point me in the right direction if LWP::UserAgent is not an
> appropriate way to do this.
>
Well, LWP::UserAgent is an appropriate to do that. In many cases, however,
WWW::Mechanize would be preferable.
> The code below is hitting the server but not sending a POST request.
> $ua returns LWP::UserAgent=HASH(0x82d0ab0)
>
Well, a few notes on the code:
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Peter.
>
>
> #!/usr/bin/perl
>
> use strict;
> use HTTP::Request::Common;
> use LWP::UserAgent;
>
> my($ua) = LWP::UserAgent->new;
>
You should really write
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my ($ua) calls the function in list context and returns only the first
element. my $ua calls it in scalar context. I don't think it makes much
difference here, but it could yield to subtle bugs.
> my($url) = 'http://foo.com/';
>
Ditto.
> my($send) = $ua->request(POST $url,
> Content_Type => 'form-data',
> Content =>
> [
> userid => 'test',
> firstname => 'Test',
> ]
> );
You should use the $ua->post ( $url, \%form) method instead. Reading from the
LWP::UserAgent POD document:
<<<<<<<
$ua->post( $url, \%form )
$ua->post( $url, \@form )
$ua->post( $url, \%form, $field_name => $value, ... )
This method will dispatch a "POST" request on the given $url, with
%form or @form providing the key/value pairs for the fill-in form
content. Additional headers and content options are the same as for
the get() method.
This method will use the POST() function from "HTTP::Request::Com
mon" to build the request. See HTTP::Request::Common for a details
on how to pass form content and other advanced features.
>>>>>>>>>
If something doesn't work you can trace the conversation using wireshark:
http://www.wireshark.org/
Hope it helps,
Shlomi Fish
> _______________________________________________
> Melbourne-pm mailing list
> Melbourne-pm at pm.org
> http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pm
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish shlomif at iglu.org.il
Homepage: http://www.shlomifish.org/
Chuck Norris wrote a complete Perl 6 implementation in a day but then
destroyed all evidence with his bare hands, so no one will know his secrets.
More information about the Melbourne-pm
mailing list