use WWW::Mechanize (); my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new(); $mech->get( $url ); $mech->follow_link( n => 3 ); $mech->follow_link( text_regex => qr/download this/i ); $mech->follow_link( url => 'http://host.com/index.html' ); $mech->submit_form( form_number => 3, fields => { username => 'mungo', password => 'lost-and-alone', } ); $mech->submit_form( form_name => 'search', fields => { query => 'pot of gold', }, button => 'Search Now' ); # Enable strict form processing to catch typos and non-existant form fields. my $strict_mech = WWW::Mechanize->new( strict_forms => 1); $strict_mech->get( $url ); # This method call will die, saving you lots of time looking for the bug. $strict_mech->submit_form( form_number => 3, fields => { usernaem => 'mungo', # typo in field name password => 'lost-and-alone', extra_field => 123, # field does not exist } );
Features include:
Mech is well suited for use in testing web applications. If you use one of the Test::*, like Test::HTML::Lint modules, you can check the fetched content and use that as input to a test call.
use Test::More; like( $mech->content(), qr/$expected/, "Got expected content" );
Each page fetch stores its URL in a history stack which you can traverse.
$mech->back();
If you want finer control over your page fetching, you can use these methods. "follow_link()" and "submit_form()" are just high level wrappers around them.
$mech->find_link( n => $number ); $mech->form_number( $number ); $mech->form_name( $name ); $mech->field( $name, $value ); $mech->set_fields( %field_values ); $mech->set_visible( @criteria ); $mech->click( $button );
WWW::Mechanize is a proper subclass of LWP::UserAgent and you can also use any of LWP::UserAgent's methods.
$mech->add_header($name => $value);
Please note that Mech does NOT support JavaScript, you need additional software for that. Please check ``JavaScript'' in WWW::Mechanize::FAQ for more.
The queue for bugs & enhancements in WWW::Mechanize. Please note that the queue at <http://rt.cpan.org> is no longer maintained.
The CPAN documentation page for Mechanize.
Frequently asked questions. Make sure you read here FIRST.
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new()
The constructor for WWW::Mechanize overrides two of the params to the LWP::UserAgent constructor:
agent => 'WWW-Mechanize/#.##' cookie_jar => {} # an empty, memory-only HTTP::Cookies object
You can override these overrides by passing params to the constructor, as in:
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new( agent => 'wonderbot 1.01' );
If you want none of the overhead of a cookie jar, or don't want your bot accepting cookies, you have to explicitly disallow it, like so:
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new( cookie_jar => undef );
Here are the params that WWW::Mechanize recognizes. These do not include params that LWP::UserAgent recognizes.
Checks each request made to see if it was successful. This saves you the trouble of manually checking yourself. Any errors found are errors, not warnings.
The default value is ON, unless it's being subclassed, in which case it is OFF. This means that standalone WWW::Mechanize instances have autocheck turned on, which is protective for the vast majority of Mech users who don't bother checking the return value of "get()" and "post()" and can't figure why their code fails. However, if WWW::Mechanize is subclassed, such as for Test::WWW::Mechanize or Test::WWW::Mechanize::Catalyst, this may not be an appropriate default, so it's off.
Turn off the automatic call to the LWP::UserAgent "env_proxy" function.
This needs to be explicitly turned off if you're using Crypt::SSLeay to access a https site via a proxy server. Note: you still need to set your HTTPS_PROXY environment variable as appropriate.
Reference to a "warn"-compatible function, such as "Carp::carp", that is called when a warning needs to be shown.
If this is set to "undef", no warnings will ever be shown. However, it's probably better to use the "quiet" method to control that behavior.
If this value is not passed, Mech uses "Carp::carp" if Carp is installed, or "CORE::warn" if not.
Reference to a "die"-compatible function, such as "Carp::croak", that is called when there's a fatal error.
If this is set to "undef", no errors will ever be shown.
If this value is not passed, Mech uses "Carp::croak" if Carp is installed, or "CORE::die" if not.
Don't complain on warnings. Setting "quiet => 1" is the same as calling "$mech->quiet(1)". Default is off.
Sets the depth of the page stack that keeps track of all the downloaded pages. Default is effectively infinite stack size. If the stack is eating up your memory, then set this to a smaller number, say 5 or 10. Setting this to zero means Mech will keep no history.
In addition, WWW::Mechanize also allows you to globally enable strict and verbose mode for form handling, which is done with HTML::Form.
Globally sets the HTML::Form strict flag which causes form submission to croak if any of the passed fields don't exist in the form, and/or a value doesn't exist in a select element. This can still be disabled in individual calls to "submit_form()".
Default is off.
Globally sets the HTML::Form verbose flag which causes form submission to warn about any bad HTML form constructs found. This cannot be disabled later.
Default is off.
Globally sets the HTML::Parser marked sections flag which causes HTML "CDATA[[" sections to be honoured. This cannot be disabled later.
Default is on.
To support forms, WWW::Mechanize's constructor pushes POST on to the agent's "requests_redirectable" list (see also LWP::UserAgent.)
then it will be replaced with a more interesting one. For instance,
$mech->agent_alias( 'Windows IE 6' );
sets your User-Agent to
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
The list of valid aliases can be returned from "known_agent_aliases()". The current list is:
@aliases = WWW::Mechanize::known_agent_aliases(); @aliases = WWW::Mechanize->known_agent_aliases(); @aliases = $mech->known_agent_aliases();
The results are stored internally in the agent object, but you don't know that. Just use the accessors listed below. Poking at the internals is deprecated and subject to change in the future.
"get()" is a well-behaved overloaded version of the method in LWP::UserAgent. This lets you do things like
$mech->get( $uri, ':content_file' => $filename );
and you can rest assured that the params will get filtered down appropriately. See ``get'' in LWP::UserAgent for more details.
NOTE: The file in ":content_file" will contain the raw content of the response. If the response content is encoded (e.g. gzip encoded), the file will be encoded as well. Use $mech->save_content if you need the decoded content.
NOTE: Because ":content_file" causes the page contents to be stored in a file instead of the response object, some Mech functions that expect it to be there won't work as expected. Use with caution.
Here is a non-complete list of methods that do not work as expected with ":content_file": " forms() ", " current_form() ", " links() ", " title() ", " content(...) ", " text() ", all content-handling methods, all link methods, all image methods, all form methods, all field methods, " save_content(...) ", " dump_links(...) ", " dump_images(...) ", " dump_forms(...) ", " dump_text(...) "
my $res = $mech->put( $uri ); my $res = $mech->put( $uri , $field_name => $value, ... );
Returns the HTTP::Response object from the reload, or "undef" if there's no current request.
Returns true if it could go back, or false if not.
The maximum useful value for $n is "$mech->history_count - 1". Requests beyond that bound will return "undef".
History items are returned as hash references, in the form:
{ req => $http_request, res => $http_response }
This is a convenience function that wraps "$mech->res->is_success".
Synonym for "$mech->response()".
Note that you can also use is_redirect to see if the most recent response was a redirect like this.
$mech->get($url); do_stuff() if $mech->res->is_redirect;
To preserve backwards compatibility, additional parameters will be ignored unless none of "raw | decoded_by_headers | charset" is specified and the text is HTML, in which case an error will be triggered.
A fresh instance of WWW::Mechanize will return "undef" when "$mech->content()" is called, because no content is present before a request has been made.
The text is extracted by parsing the content, and then the extracted text is cached, so don't worry about performance of calling this repeatedly.
Here some examples:
$mech->follow_link( text => 'download', n => 3 );
$mech->follow_link( url_regex => qr/download/i );
or
$mech->follow_link( url_regex => qr/(?i:download)/ );
$mech->follow_link( n => 3 );
$mech->follow_link( url => '/other/page' );
or
$mech->follow_link( url => 'http://example.com/page' );
Returns the result of the "GET" method (an HTTP::Response object) if a link was found.
If the page has no links, or the specified link couldn't be found, returns "undef". If "autocheck" is enabled an exception will be thrown instead.
You can take the URL part and pass it to the "get()" method. If that's your plan, you might as well use the "follow_link()" method directly, since it does the "get()" for you automatically.
Note that "<FRAME SRC="...">" tags are parsed out of the HTML and treated as links so this method works with them.
You can select which link to find by passing in one or more of these key/value pairs:
"text" matches the text of the link against string, which must be an exact match. To select a link with text that is exactly ``download'', use
$mech->find_link( text => 'download' );
"text_regex" matches the text of the link against regex. To select a link with text that has ``download'' anywhere in it, regardless of case, use
$mech->find_link( text_regex => qr/download/i );
Note that the text extracted from the page's links are trimmed. For example, "<a> foo </a>" is stored as 'foo', and searching for leading or trailing spaces will fail.
Matches the URL of the link against string or regex, as appropriate. The URL may be a relative URL, like foo/bar.html, depending on how it's coded on the page.
Matches the absolute URL of the link against string or regex, as appropriate. The URL will be an absolute URL, even if it's relative in the page.
Matches the name of the link against string or regex, as appropriate.
Matches the rel of the link against string or regex, as appropriate. This can be used to find stylesheets, favicons, or links the author of the page does not want bots to follow.
Matches the attribute 'id' of the link against string or regex, as appropriate.
Matches the attribute 'class' of the link against string or regex, as appropriate.
Matches the tag that the link came from against string or regex, as appropriate. The "tag_regex" is probably most useful to check for more than one tag, as in:
$mech->find_link( tag_regex => qr/^(a|frame)$/ );
The tags and attributes looked at are defined below.
If "n" is not specified, it defaults to 1. Therefore, if you don't specify any params, this method defaults to finding the first link on the page.
Note that you can specify multiple text or URL parameters, which will be ANDed together. For example, to find the first link with text of ``News'' and with ``cnn.com'' in the URL, use:
$mech->find_link( text => 'News', url_regex => qr/cnn\.com/ );
The return value is a reference to an array containing a WWW::Mechanize::Link object for every link in "$self->content".
The links come from the following:
In list context, "find_all_links()" returns a list of the links. Otherwise, it returns a reference to the list of links.
"find_all_links()" with no parameters returns all links in the page.
If no criteria are passed, all inputs will be returned.
If there is no current page, there is no form on the current page, or there are no submit controls in the current form then the return will be an empty array.
You may use a regex or a literal string:
# get all textarea controls whose names begin with "customer" my @customer_text_inputs = $mech->find_all_inputs( type => 'textarea', name_regex => qr/^customer/, ); # get all text or textarea controls called "customer" my @customer_text_inputs = $mech->find_all_inputs( type_regex => qr/^(text|textarea)$/, name => 'customer', );
You can select which image to find by passing in one or more of these key/value pairs:
"alt" matches the ALT attribute of the image against string, which must be an exact match. To select a image with an ALT tag that is exactly ``download'', use
$mech->find_image( alt => 'download' );
"alt_regex" matches the ALT attribute of the image against a regular expression. To select an image with an ALT attribute that has ``download'' anywhere in it, regardless of case, use
$mech->find_image( alt_regex => qr/download/i );
Matches the URL of the image against string or regex, as appropriate. The URL may be a relative URL, like foo/bar.html, depending on how it's coded on the page.
Matches the absolute URL of the image against string or regex, as appropriate. The URL will be an absolute URL, even if it's relative in the page.
Matches the tag that the image came from against string or regex, as appropriate. The "tag_regex" is probably most useful to check for more than one tag, as in:
$mech->find_image( tag_regex => qr/^(img|input)$/ );
The tags supported are "<img>" and "<input>".
"id" matches the id attribute of the image against string, which must be an exact match. To select an image with the exact id ``download-image'', use
$mech->find_image( id => 'download-image' );
"id_regex" matches the id attribute of the image against a regular expression. To select the first image with an id that contains ``download'' anywhere in it, use
$mech->find_image( id_regex => qr/download/ );
"class" matches the class attribute of the image against string, which must be an exact match. To select an image with the exact class ``img-fuid'', use
$mech->find_image( class => 'img-fluid' );
To select an image with the class attribute ``rounded float-left'', use
$mech->find_image( class => 'rounded float-left' );
Note that the classes have to be matched as a complete string, in the exact order they appear in the website's source code.
"class_regex" matches the class attribute of the image against a regular expression. Use this if you want a partial class name, or if an image has several classes, but you only care about one.
To select the first image with the class ``rounded'', where there are multiple images that might also have either class ``float-left'' or ``float-right'', use
$mech->find_image( class_regex => qr/\brounded\b/ );
Selecting an image with multiple classes where you do not care about the order they appear in the website's source code is not currently supported.
If "n" is not specified, it defaults to 1. Therefore, if you don't specify any params, this method defaults to finding the first image on the page.
Note that you can specify multiple ALT or URL parameters, which will be ANDed together. For example, to find the first image with ALT text of ``News'' and with ``cnn.com'' in the URL, use:
$mech->find_image( image => 'News', url_regex => qr/cnn\.com/ );
The return value is a reference to an array containing a WWW::Mechanize::Image object for every image in "$mech->content".
In list context, "find_all_images()" returns a list of the images. Otherwise, it returns a reference to the list of images.
"find_all_images()" with no parameters returns all images in the page.
If it is found, the form is returned as an HTML::Form object and set internally for later use with Mech's form methods such as "field()" and "click()". When called in a list context, the number of the found form is also returned as a second value.
Emits a warning and returns "undef" if no form is found.
The first form is number 1, not zero.
If it is found, the form is returned as an HTML::Form object and set internally for later use with Mech's form methods such as "field()" and "click()".
Returns "undef" if no form is found.
By default, the first form that has this name will be returned.
my $form = $mech->form_name("order_form");
If you want the second, third or nth match, pass an optional arguments hash reference as the final parameter with a key "n" to pick which instance you want. The numbering starts at 1.
my $third_product_form = $mech->form_name("buy_now", { n => 3 });
If the "n" parameter is not passed, and there is more than one form on the page with that name, then the first one is used, and a warning is generated.
If it is found, the form is returned as an HTML::Form object and set internally for later use with Mech's form methods such as "field()" and "click()".
Returns "undef" if no form is found.
By default, the first form that has this ID will be returned.
my $form = $mech->form_id("order_form");
Although the HTML specification requires the ID to be unique within a page, some pages might not adhere to that. If you want the second, third or nth match, pass an optional arguments hash reference as the final parameter with a key "n" to pick which instance you want. The numbering starts at 1.
my $third_product_form = $mech->form_id("buy_now", { n => 3 });
If the "n" parameter is not passed, and there is more than one form on the page with that ID, then the first one is used, and a warning is generated.
If it is found, the form is returned as an HTML::Form object and set internally for later use with Mech's form methods such as "field()" and "click()".
If no form is found it returns "undef". This will also trigger a warning, unless "quiet" is enabled.
my $form = $mech->form_with_fields( qw/sku quantity add_to_cart/ );
If you want the second, third or nth match, pass an optional arguments hash reference as the final parameter with a key "n" to pick which instance you want. The numbering starts at 1.
my $form = $mech->form_with_fields( 'sky', 'qty', { n => 2 } );
If the "n" parameter is not passed, and there is more than one form on the page with that ID, then the first one is used, and a warning is generated.
If it is found, the form is returned as an HTML::Form object and set internally for later used with Mech's form methods such as "field()" and "click()".
Returns "undef" and emits a warning if no form is found.
Note that this functionality requires libwww-perl 5.69 or higher.
All matching forms (perhaps none) are returned as a list of HTML::Form objects.
By default, the first form that matches all criteria will be returned.
my $form = $mech->form_with( name => 'order_form', method => 'POST' );
If you want the second, third or nth match, pass an optional arguments hash reference as the final parameter with a key "n" to pick which instance you want. The numbering starts at 1.
my $form = $mech->form_with( method => 'POST', { n => 4 } );
If the "n" parameter is not passed, and there is more than one form on the page matching these criteria, then the first one is used, and a warning is generated.
If it is found, the form is returned as an HTML::Form object and set internally for later used with Mech's form methods such as "field()" and "click()".
Returns "undef" if no form is found.
If the field is of type ``file'', its value should be an arrayref. Example:
$mech->field( $file_input, ['/tmp/file.txt'] );
Value examples for ``file'' inputs, followed by explanation of what each index mean:
# 0: filepath 1: filename 3: headers ['/tmp/file.txt'] ['/tmp/file.txt', 'filename.txt'] ['/tmp/file.txt', 'filename.txt', @headers] ['/tmp/file.txt', 'filename.txt', Content => 'some content'] [undef, 'filename.txt', Content => 'content here']
Index 0 is the filepath that will be read from disk. Index 1 is the filename which will be used in the HTTP request body; if not given, filepath (index 0) is used instead. If "Content => 'content here'" is used as shown, then filepath will be ignored.
The optional $number parameter is used to distinguish between two fields with the same name. The fields are numbered from 1.
# select 'foo' $mech->select($name, 'foo');
If the field is not "<select multiple>" and the $value is an array reference, only the first value will be set. [Note: until version 1.05_03 the documentation claimed that only the last value would be set, but this was incorrect.]
# select 'bar' $mech->select($name, ['bar', 'ignored', 'ignored']);
Passing $value as a hash reference with an "n" key selects an item by number.
# select the third value $mech->select($name, {n => 3});
The numbering starts at 1. This applies to the current form.
If you have a field with "<select multiple>" and you pass a single $value, then $value will be added to the list of fields selected, without clearing the others.
# add 'bar' to the list of selected values $mech->select($name, 'bar');
However, if you pass an array reference, then all previously selected values will be cleared and replaced with all values inside the array reference.
# replace the selection with 'foo' and 'bar' $mech->select($name, ['foo', 'bar']);
This also works when selecting by numbers, in which case the value of the "n" key will be an array reference of value numbers you want to replace the selection with.
# replace the selection with the 2nd and 4th element $mech->select($name, {n => [2, 4]});
To add multiple additional values to the list of selected fields without clearing, call "select" in the simple $value form with each single value in a loop.
# add all values in the array to the selection $mech->select($name, $_) for @additional_values;
Returns true on successfully setting the value. On failure, returns false and calls "$self->warn()" with an error message.
# set the second $name field to 'foo' $mech->set_fields( $name => [ 'foo', 2 ] );
The value of a field of type ``file'' should be an arrayref as described in "field()". Examples:
$mech->set_fields( $file_field => ['/tmp/file.txt'] ); $mech->set_fields( $file_field => ['/tmp/file.txt', 'filename.txt'] );
The value for a ``file'' input can also be an arrayref containing an arrayref and a number, as documented in "submit_form()". The number will be used to find the field in the form. Example:
$mech->set_fields( $file_field => [['/tmp/file.txt'], 1] );
The fields are numbered from 1.
For fields that have a predefined set of values, you may also provide a reference to an integer, if you don't know the options for the field, but you know you just want (e.g.) the first one.
# select the first value in the $name select box $mech->set_fields( $name => \0 ); # select the last value in the $name select box $mech->set_fields( $name => \-1 );
This applies to the current form.
$mech->set_visible( $username, $password );
and the first and second fields will be set accordingly. The method is called set_visible because it acts only on visible fields; hidden form inputs are not considered. The order of the fields is the order in which they appear in the HTML source which is nearly always the order anyone viewing the page would think they are in, but some creative work with tables could change that; caveat user.
Each element in @criteria is either a field value or a field specifier. A field value is a scalar. A field specifier allows you to specify the type of input field you want to set and is denoted with an arrayref containing two elements. So you could specify the first radio button with
$mech->set_visible( [ radio => 'KCRW' ] );
Field values and specifiers can be intermixed, hence
$mech->set_visible( 'fred', 'secret', [ option => 'Checking' ] );
would set the first two fields to ``fred'' and ``secret'', and the next "OPTION" menu field to ``Checking''.
The possible field specifier types are: ``text'', ``password'', ``hidden'', ``textarea'', ``file'', ``image'', ``submit'', ``radio'', ``checkbox'' and ``option''.
"set_visible" returns the number of values set.
$mech->tick('extra', 'cheese'); $mech->tick('extra', 'mushrooms'); $mech->tick('no_value', ''); # <input type="checkbox" name="no_value">
The optional $number parameter is used to distinguish between two fields with the same name. The fields are numbered from 1.
If the field is of type file (file upload field), the value is always cleared to prevent remote sites from downloading your local files. To upload a file, specify its file name explicitly.
If there is only one button on the form, "$mech->click()" with no arguments simply clicks that one button.
Returns an HTTP::Response object.
Dies if no button is found.
Clicks the button named name in the current form.
Clicks the button with the id id in the current form.
Clicks the nth button with type submit in the current form. Numbering starts at 1.
Clicks the button with the value value in the current form.
Clicks on the button referenced by $inputobject, an instance of HTML::Form::SubmitInput obtained e.g. from
$mech->current_form()->find_input( undef, 'submit' )
$inputobject must belong to the current form.
These arguments (optional) allow you to specify the (x,y) coordinates of the click.
Returns an HTTP::Response object.
This used to be a synonym for "$mech->click( 'submit' )", but is no longer so.
Specifies the fields to be filled in the current form.
Probably all you need for the common case. It combines a smart form selector and data setting in one operation. It selects the first form that contains all fields mentioned in "\%fields". This is nice because you don't need to know the name or number of the form to do this.
(calls "form_with_fields()" and "set_fields()").
If you choose "with_fields", the "fields" option will be ignored. The "form_number", "form_name" and "form_id" options will still be used. An exception will be thrown unless exactly one form matches all of the provided criteria.
Selects the nth form (calls "form_number()". If this param is not specified, the currently-selected form is used.
Selects the form named name (calls "form_name()")
Selects the form with ID ID (calls "form_id()")
Clicks on button button (calls "click()")
Sets the x or y values for "click()"
Sets the HTML::Form strict flag which causes form submission to croak if any of the passed fields don't exist on the page, and/or a value doesn't exist in a select element. By default HTML::Form sets this value to false.
This behavior can also be turned on globally by passing "strict_forms => 1" to "WWW::Mechanize->new". If you do that, you can still disable it for individual calls by passing "strict_forms => 0" here.
If no form is selected, the first form found is used.
If button is not passed, then the "submit()" method is used instead.
If you want to submit a file and get its content from a scalar rather than a file in the filesystem, you can use:
$mech->submit_form(with_fields => { logfile => [ [ undef, 'whatever', Content => $content ], 1 ] } );
Returns an HTTP::Response object.
$mech->add_header( Encoding => 'text/klingon' );
If a value is "undef", then that header will be removed from any future requests. For example, to never send a Referer header:
$mech->add_header( Referer => undef );
If you want to delete a header, use "delete_header".
Returns the number of name/value pairs added.
NOTE: This method was very different in WWW::Mechanize before 1.00. Back then, the headers were stored in a package hash, not as a member of the object instance. Calling "add_header()" would modify the headers for every WWW::Mechanize object, even after your object no longer existed.
# Don't send a Referer for this URL $mech->add_header( Referer => undef ); # Get the URL $mech->get( $url ); # Back to the default behavior $mech->delete_header( 'Referer' );
$mech->quiet(0); # turns on warnings (the default) $mech->quiet(1); # turns off warnings $mech->quiet(); # returns the current quietness status
Autocheck checks each request made to see if it was successful. This saves you the trouble of manually checking yourself. Any errors found are errors, not warnings. Please see "new" for more details.
$mech->autocheck(1); # turns on automatic request checking (the default) $mech->autocheck(0); # turns off automatic request checking $mech->autocheck(); # returns the current autocheck status
A value of 0 means ``no history at all.'' By default, the max stack depth is humongously large, effectively keeping all history.
If the content type does not begin with "text/", then the content is saved in binary mode (i.e. "binmode()" is set on the output filehandle).
Additional arguments can be passed as key/value pairs:
$mech->save_content( $filename, binmode => ':raw', decoded_by_headers => 1 );
This should be the safest way to save contents verbatim.
binmode $fh, $binmode;
otherwise the filehandle is set to binary mode if $binmode is true:
binmode $fh;
Unlike the rest of the "dump_*" methods, $fh can be a scalar. It will be used as a file name.
If $absolute is true, links displayed are absolute, not relative.
If $absolute is true, links displayed are absolute, not relative.
The output will include empty lines for images that have no "src" attribute and therefore no URL.
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new(); $mech->get("https://www.google.com/"); $mech->dump_forms;
will print:
GET https://www.google.com/search [f] ie=ISO-8859-1 (hidden readonly) hl=en (hidden readonly) source=hp (hidden readonly) biw= (hidden readonly) bih= (hidden readonly) q= (text) btnG=Google Search (submit) btnI=I'm Feeling Lucky (submit) gbv=1 (hidden readonly)
Note that WWW::Mechanize's constructor pushes POST on to the agent's "requests_redirectable" list.
Note that $request will be modified.
Returns an HTTP::Response object.
Say you have a page that you know has malformed output, and you want to update it so the links come out correctly:
my $html = $mech->content; $html =~ s[</option>.{0,3}</td>][</option></select></td>]isg; $mech->update_html( $html );
This method is also used internally by the mech itself to update its own HTML content when loading a page. This means that if you would like to systematically perform the above HTML substitution, you would overload "update_html" in a subclass thusly:
package MyMech; use base 'WWW::Mechanize'; sub update_html { my ($self, $html) = @_; $html =~ s[</option>.{0,3}</td>][</option></select></td>]isg; $self->WWW::Mechanize::update_html( $html ); }
If you do this, then the mech will use the tidied-up HTML instead of the original both when parsing for its own needs, and for returning to you through "content()".
Overloading this method is also the recommended way of implementing extra validation steps (e.g. link checkers) for every HTML page received. "warn" and "warn" would then come in handy to signal validation errors.
The four argument form described in LWP::UserAgent is still supported.
This is not meant to be an inclusive list. LWP::UA may have added others.
We add a "Referer" header, as well as header to note that we can accept gzip encoded content, if Compress::Zlib is installed.
The current page needs to be pushed onto the stack before we get a new page, and the stack needs to be popped when BACK occurs.
Neither of these take any arguments, they just operate on the $mech object.
my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new( autocheck => 1 );
use HTTP::CookieJar::LWP (); my $jar = HTTP::CookieJar::LWP->new; my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new( cookie_jar => $jar );
my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new( protocols_allowed => [ 'http', 'https' ] );
This will prevent you from inadvertently following URLs like "file:///etc/passwd"
my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new( protocols_forbidden => [ 'file', 'mailto', 'ssh', ] );
This will prevent you from inadvertently following URLs like "file:///etc/passwd"
my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new( strict_forms => 1 );
If you do not want to have this option globally, you can still turn it on for individual forms.
$agent->submit_form( fields => { foo => 'bar' } , strict_forms => 1 );
Repository: <https://github.com/libwww-perl/WWW-Mechanize>. Bugs: <https://github.com/libwww-perl/WWW-Mechanize/issues>.
There are six hacks that use Mech or a Mech derivative:
The book was also positively reviewed on Slashdot: <http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/11/2126256>
The Mech mailing list is at <http://groups.google.com/group/www-mechanize-users> and is specific to Mechanize, unlike the LWP mailing list below. Although it is a users list, all development discussion takes place here, too.
The LWP mailing list is at <http://lists.perl.org/showlist.cgi?name=libwww>, and is more user-oriented and well-populated than the WWW::Mechanize list.
<http://perlmonks.org> is an excellent community of support, and many questions about Mech have already been answered there.
A random array of examples submitted by users, included with the Mechanize distribution.
IBM article ``Secure Web site access with Perl''
Leland Johnson's hack #84 in Google Hacks, 2nd Edition is an example of a production script that uses WWW::Mechanize and HTML::TableContentParser. It takes in keywords and returns the estimated price of these keywords on Google's AdWords program.
Linda Julien writes about using HTTP::Recorder to create WWW::Mechanize scripts.
Jason Gilmore's article on using WWW::Mechanize for scraping sales information from Amazon and eBay.
Chris Ball's article about using WWW::Mechanize for scraping TV listings.
Randal Schwartz's article on scraping Yahoo News for images. It's already out of date: He manually walks the list of links hunting for matches, which wouldn't have been necessary if the "find_link()" method existed at press time.
WWW::Mechanize on the Perl Advent Calendar, by Mark Fowler.
Michael Schilli's article on Mech and WWW::Mechanize::Shell for the German magazine Linux Magazin.
Acts as a proxy for web interaction, and then generates WWW::Mechanize scripts.
Just like Mech, but using Microsoft Internet Explorer to do the work.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.