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PHP auto-fil and auto-submit html form

I've got a weird idea here and was wondering how to go about it. (I have no idea as to where to start.)

I've got a web-form that enters data into a mysql database when the user submits. I would like to program a php script to automagically fill in the info *and* submit it so that I can automate a whole bunch of entries (1000 for example) so I can have a ton of random sample data to work with for some other scripts that will pull this data and possibly try to trend it.

Just so we're 100% clear, I know I can do it from the shell easy enough, but the thought struck me "I wonder if I could do it this other way?" So this is more of a curiosity than anything.

Tony O'Byrne

ASKER

Just to elaborate a little... When I said that I know it could be done from the shell easy enough, I meant that I could do php/mysql via the shell. What I'm really curious about is php actually sending the information and submitting it as if the user had done it. I guess I would be trying to get php to send a "post" request to the server?

As I said, I've no idea where to start and my above terminology may be ... terminal. Terminal terminology. :-)

Ray Paseur

Yes, you can post information to a script. I use fsockopen() to do that. I will post an example here for you in a moment. ~Ray

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Ray Paseur

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Ray Paseur

Here is the "catcher" script.

<?php // RAY_dump_superglobals.php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
 
// OPEN AN OUTPUT BUFFER
ob_start();
 
// SHOW THE SUPERGLOBALS
echo "\nGET ";   var_dump($_GET);
echo "\nPOST ";  var_dump($_POST);
echo "\nCOOKIE ";var_dump($_COOKIE);
 
// CAPTURE THE BUFFER
$vardump = ob_get_clean();
 
// SEND THE RESULTS
mail('you@your.org', 'VARDUMP', "$vardump");
 
// SHOW THE RESULTS
echo htmlentities($vardump);
?>

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Tony O'Byrne

ASKER

What's the "catcher" script for?

Tony O'Byrne

ASKER

Looks like this'll do. :-) It gives me something to work off of which is what I was looking for. If I have any further issues, I'll create a new thread. Thanks for the help.

Ray Paseur

The catcher script will receive the POST data and print it out for you.

Thanks for the points - it's a great question, ~Ray