Question

Need to access tracking info after loggin into a website using Perl.

Asked by: mathavra

I am trying to write a Perl program to access tracking information from a website on shipped packages. One difference is that with this site, I need to authenticate with a userid and password first in a screen, then enter a reference number to retrieve the information required.

I have been looking around/reading stuff online for using LWP or Mechanize etc. No success yet. Can someone help me out please. I need to get this completed very quickly. So, please help me out in a timely manner on this one. Here are the steps:

1) Need to pass the user id and password Login into the site.
2) And, in the next form, need to pass the tracking number to retrieve details.

Thanks in advance for help.

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Asked On
2005-06-02 at 23:04:11ID21445515
Tags

perl

,

lwp

Topic

CGI Scripting

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
15

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Answers

 

by: PeeweePosted on 2005-06-03 at 02:15:43ID: 14137841

Hi mathavra,
actually what you talk about is covered in the links below using LWP.  To get around the username & password problem u need to set the credentials of the browser.

http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2002/08/20/perlandlwp.html?page=4
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2002/08/20/perlandlwp.html?page=5

regards Peewee

 

by: PeeweePosted on 2005-06-03 at 02:18:53ID: 14137857

also you'll find page two interesting for posting your passing your tracking number:

http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2002/08/20/perlandlwp.html?page=2

 

by: mathavraPosted on 2005-06-06 at 20:19:10ID: 14158933

Hello, I tried the POST commands to access the login page first. The field names are hidden. So, I am not sure how to pass value to submit the form. Here is how the "View Source" looks:

<form name="FormTrack" method="post" action="tracking.aspx" id="FormTrack">
<input type="hidden" name="__EVENTTARGET" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="__EVENTARGUEMENT" value="" />
<input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATE" value="dDW......................................lots of characters" />

And, here is the code I am trying:

#!D:\perl\bin\perl.exe
use LWP;
use HTTP::Request::Common;

$ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
$req=$ua->request(POST 'URL',
                ["__EVENTTARGET" => "userid", "__EVENTARGUEMENT" => "password", "__VIEWSTATE" => "btnSubmit"]);

print $req->content;

The following is the output from the program:

-----------------------------------------
<html><head><title>Object moved</title></head><body>

<h2>Object moved to <a href='/Error.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/Login.aspx'>here</a>.</h2>

</body></html>
-----------------------------------------

Please help!

Mathav



 

by: PeeweePosted on 2005-06-07 at 14:58:40ID: 14166381

Hi mathavra,

you dont seem to be using the credentials method, is this correct. ie you dont need to login first and the acess a page?

CHANGE POST  to post
my $req=$ua->request(post 'URL',
                ["__EVENTTARGET" => "userid", "__EVENTARGUEMENT" => "password", "__VIEWSTATE" => "btnSubmit"]);


also have you added the error handling?

  die "$url error: ", $response->status_line
   unless $response->is_success;
  die "Weird content type at $url -- ", $response->content_type
   unless $response->content_type eq 'text/html';


 

by: mathavraPosted on 2005-06-07 at 17:02:29ID: 14167063

Does the credentials method work for the hidden fields?? Also, when I added the error lines I get the following error:

"302 Found at p1_ats_l.pl line 10.".

Also, I have to use POST in uppercase since I am trying in a Windows 2000 platform.

I am going to try the credentials now.

Thanks for the comments
Mathav

 

by: ahoffmannPosted on 2005-06-07 at 23:48:10ID: 14168314

when a request recives the server, ther server can't distinguish hidden from any other fields

 

by: mathavraPosted on 2005-06-08 at 11:42:40ID: 14173419

can u explain, please on the hidden fields?

 

by: ahoffmannPosted on 2005-06-08 at 13:06:53ID: 14174170

there is nothing to explain
the type=hidden attribute just tells the browser to render this tag invisible, nothing more, nothing less
the server does not knwo who or how or why the parameter was set

 

by: mathavraPosted on 2005-06-08 at 17:31:08ID: 14175978

can some one help me in how to pass values to hidden fields (also trace out the hidden fields?)?.

Thanks in advance
Mathav

 

by: mathavraPosted on 2005-06-08 at 17:38:10ID: 14176008

I just increased the points..since this issue seems to be complicated...

 

by: ahoffmannPosted on 2005-06-09 at 00:02:39ID: 14177212

> ..  how to pass values to hidden fields

use CGI;
my $q=new CGI;
print $q->hidden("par_name","par_value");

> .. also trace out the hidden fields?
what do you mean by that?
as explained above, the server can't destinguish if a parameter was a hidden field  or not according the raw request data. But as the server (in particular the application on it) is the same for generating the page with the hidden fields and then receiving the request, it already "knows" which parameters have been hidden ;-)

 

by: PeeweePosted on 2005-07-16 at 12:23:26ID: 14459082

looks like a point split between myself and ahoffmann again :)

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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