[vox-tech] Automating web site interaction

[Ken Bloom]

On Monday 10 April 2006 13:12, Bruce Wolk wrote:
> Does anyone have a recommendation for some software that I can run as
> a cron job to go to a specific website, autheticate itself on a login
> web page with a userid and password, then go to a specific page on
> the site and mimick a button click?

Try using Perl's WWW::Mechanize library which is also available for 
Python:

[bloom at cat-in-the-hat literature]$ apt-cache search WWW Mechanize
libhttp-recorder-perl - Record interaction with websites
libwww-mechanize-perl - Automate interaction with websites
python-mechanize - stateful programmatic web browsing
python2.3-mechanize - stateful programmatic web browsing
python2.4-mechanize - stateful programmatic web browsing

And for Ruby it's at http://rubyforge.org/projects/mechanize/

HTTP::Recorder looks like it makes it even easier to write 
WWW::Mechanize scripts.

[bloom at cat-in-the-hat literature]$ apt-cache show libhttp-recorder-perl 
Package: libhttp-recorder-perl
<snip the boring parts>
Description: Record interaction with websites
 HTTP::Recorder allows your Perl program to record the interaction with
 websites (SSL and non-SSL). You set HTTP::Recorder as the user agent
 for a proxy, and it will rewrite HTTP responses so that additional
 requests can be recorded.
 .
 The interaction is recorded in a script suitable for WWW::Mechanize. If
 a JavaScript-enabled browser is being used, the script can be examined
 an modified as it is being recorded.

--Ken Bloom

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