man WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller (3): framework to automate HTML forms

SYNOPSIS

Form fields can be specified by name or by a regular expression. A field specified by name takes precedence over a matching regular expression.

You are not limited to fixed form values - callbacks and interactive editing are also already provided :

# Create a form filler that asks us for the password
# Normally, the HTML would come from a LWP::UserAgent request
my $html = "<html><body><form name='f' action='/login.asp'>
<input type='text' name='login'>
<input type='password' name='password' >
<input type='submit' name=Login value='Log in'>
<input type='hidden' name='session' value='0xDEADBEEF' />
</form></body></html>";
my $f = WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller->new();
my $form = HTML::Form->parse($html,"http://www.fbi.gov/super/secret/");
$f->add_filler( password => Interactive => []);
$f->fill_form($form);
my $request = $form->click("Login");
# Now we have a complete HTTP request, which we can hand off to
# LWP::UserAgent or (preferrably) WWW::Mechanize
print $request->as_string;

DESCRIPTION

The module is intended as a simple way to fill out HTML forms from a set of predetermined values. You set up the form filler with value elements, retrieve the HTML form, and let the form filler loose on that form.

There are value classes provided for many tasks - fixed values, values to be queried interactively from the user, values taken randomly from a list of values and values specified through a callback to some Perl code.

new %ARGS

Creates a new instance. The %ARGS hash has two possible keys : "default", whose value should be an array reference consisting of the name of a "WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value" subclass and the optional constructor values. "values" must be an array reference, which contains array and "Files", which takes an array reference to the filenames to watch.

Example :

add_filler NAME, CLASS, @ARGS

Adds a new value to the list of filled fields. "NAME" is the name of the form field, "CLASS" is the name of the class in the "WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value" namespace - it must live below there ! @ARGS is an optional array reference to the parameters that the subclass constructor takes.

add_value NAME, VALUE

Adds a new WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value subclass to the list of filled fields. "NAME" is the name of the form field, "VALUE" is an object that responds to the interface of "WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value".

fill_form FORM

Sets the field values in FORM to the values returned by the "WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value" elements. FORM should be of type HTML::Forms or respond to the same interface.

fillout @ARGS

This is a very dwimmy routine that allows you to intuitively set up values and fill out a form, if needed. It works as both a constructor and a method. The parameters are decoded according to the following examples :

  $filler = WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller->new();
  $filler->fillout(
    # For the the simple case, assumed 'Fixed' class,
    name => 'Mark',
    # With an array reference, create and fill with the right kind of object.
    widget_id => [ 'Random', (1..5) ],
  );

  $filler = WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller->new();
  $filler->fillout(
    # If the first parameter isa HTML::Form, it is
    # filled out directly
    $form,
    name => 'Mark',
    motto => [ 'Random::Word', size => 5 ],
  );

  # This works as a direct constructor as well
  WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller->fillout(
    $form2,
    name => 'Mark',
    motto => [ 'Random::Word', size => 5 ],
  );

Value subclasses

The following WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value subclasses are currently distributed :

WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value::Callback
WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value::Default
WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value::Fixed
WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value::Interactive
WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value::Keep
WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value::Random
WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value::Random::Word
WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value::Random::Chars
WWW::Mechanize::FormFiller::Value::Random::Date

EXPORT

None by default.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

AUTHOR

Max Maischein, <[email protected]>

Please contact me if you find bugs or otherwise improve the module. More tests are also very welcome !