Re: Posting Web Forms Programatically

  • From: Jim Dunleavy <jim.dunleavy@xxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:59:22 +0000

Hi Jamal,

I just read the HTML of the web site to get the names of the form
elements.
Sometimes you need to read through the Javascript if form fields are
being added dynamically or transformed before posting.
Some web services require that certain headers (such as User-Agent) are
present in the request, or you may even need to mimic what a real browser
like Firefox would include in the request headers.
As E.J. mentioned, cookies are another concern.
In Python you have the cookielib module with the CookieJar and
LWPCookieJar object types, the latter being compatible with the Perl LWP
cookie format.

HTH

--Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: Jamal Mazrui <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 11:18 PM
Subject: RE: Seeking help with a Perl module for translating languages


> Jim,
> I've been meaning to thank you for your post below, and to ask how one can
> figure out what parameters need to be passed to a post request in order to
> automate a web form in a particular way.  How did you figure out what was
> needed on those web sites?
>
> Can you or others give general tips for this kind of scripting?
>
> Jamal
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim Dunleavy
> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 9:43 AM
> To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Seeking help with a Perl module for translating languages
>
> Hi Jamal,
>
> I wrote a Python script that can query Yahoo Babelfish or Google
> Translate.
> I can post it if you are interested.
>
> --Jim
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jamal Mazrui <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 10:33 PM
> Subject: Re: Seeking help with a Perl module for translating languages
>
>
> > Thanks for the info.  I'm looking for a programmatic way of doing a
> > translation, that is, a way that a program I write can control the UI
> > rather than depending on the UI of a web page or other desktop program.
> > Do you know of something that meets this criteria?
> >
> > Jamal
> > On Tue, 14 Oct 2008,
> > Demetry Yousifidou wrote:
> >
> > > Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:31:26 +0200
> > > From: Demetry Yousifidou <demetry.yousifidou@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > Reply-To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > Subject: Re: Seeking help with a Perl module for translating
> > > languages
> > >
> > > Hi Jamal, try the translator from Google.com -> Language Tools or
> > > the web and the program from www.QuickDic.org.
> > > HTH.
> > >
> > > Demetry
> > >
> > > On 10/14/2008 11:23 PM, Jamal Mazrui  wrote:
> > > > With Perl 5.8, I am trying to use the module
> > > > WWW::Search::Translator, which programmatically translates text
> > > > between different natural
> languages
> > > > using babel.altavista.com.
> > > >
> > > > When I run the sample code in the documentation, I get an error
> > > > about
> a
> > > > missing param function.  After web searches, I found that the CGI
> module
> > > > includes a function by that name, but using that module as well
> produced
> > > > another error message instead.
> > > >
> > > > Can anyone help?  Below is the error message, followed by the code.
> > > >
> > > > Jamal
> > > >
> > > > Undefined subroutine &main::param called at TranLang.pl line 2.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >   use WWW::Search;
> > > >   %opts = (
> > > >   lp => param(en_de),
> > > >   );
> > > >    $query = "a whole bunch of english text to be translated to
> german";
> > > >    my $search = new WWW::Search('Translator');
> > > >    $search->native_query(WWW::Search::escape_query($query),\%opts);
> > > >   while (my $result = $search->next_result())
> > > >     {
> > > >     $p = $result->raw;
> > > >     print "$p";
> > > >     }
> > > >
> > > >
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  • » Re: Posting Web Forms Programatically - Jim Dunleavy