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Howto: automated data submission to a form page

Is there a programming method I can use to go to a form page on the web (via a Perl script), enter some value like a zip code into a form field on that page (again via the script that is picking the inputs out of a text file, say), then when the result page is returned, retrieve it and parse it for data? I know Perl and C, so the problem areas for me are (a) automatically submitting a piece of information to the form page (like zip code), and (b) retrieving the html of the result page so I can scrape it. Thanks, hope that's clear.

SOLUTION

rkosai

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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Tintin

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ASKER

Both of you helped me, thanks a lot. The page I care about today uses POST, so Tintin's Perl reference is actually more helpful, but rkosai's solution is clear, and can be helpful in the future. I will be doing more of this type of web programming soon. Thanks a lot.

I am brand new to experts-exchange, and I CANNOT bookmark my questions!! When I click "bookmark" at top left, I get nothing, with a note telling me how to click "add", etc, which I have done over and over. I submitted the prob. to the EE bug page, but got no response yet.

Thanks again.

Tintin

As you'll soon discover the LWP bundle is great for doing all sorts of web type activities.

Don't forget to read through the LWP tutorial

http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwww-perl/lwptut.pod

Not sure why you are having a problem with the bookmarks. What browser are you using?

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ASKER

I figured it out -- appears to be user error. thanks anyhow.