NAME

WWW::Mechanize::Firefox::Cookbook - Recipes for using WWW::Mechanize::Firefox

Introduction

Note that WWW::Mechanize::Firefox is quite similar in its API to WWW::Mechanize, so many of the recipes in WWW::Mechanize::Cookbook apply to it as well.

Basics

Launch WWW::Mechanize::Firefox

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new();
  $mech->get('http://google.com');

Launch WWW::Mechanize::Firefox if Firefox is not running

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      launch => '/path/to/firefox',
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com');

Use an existing tab

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      tab => qr/^Google/,
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com');

Use the current tab

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      tab => 'current',
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com');

Use some other tab if you have it as object

    my $app = Firefox::Application->new();
    my @tabs =  map { $_->{tab} }
               grep { $magic eq $_->{title} }
               $app->openTabs($repl);

    my $synth_mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
        tab => $tabs[0],
        app => $app,
    );

Bring the tab to the foreground at start

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      activate => 1,
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com');

Bring the tab to the foreground later

  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
  );
  ...
  $mech->activateTab();

Fetch a page to a file

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      tab => 'current',
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com',
      ':content_file' => 'google_com.html' );

Fetch a page to a file with all images

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      tab => 'current',
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com');
  $mech->save_content('google_com.html', 'google_com files');

Advanced HTML interaction

Wait until an element appears

Some sites generate content after the DOMContentLoaded event has fired. To wait until an element becomes available, use the following code:

    # The submit button is generated after the page has loaded

    my $retries = 10;
    while ($retries-- and ! $mech->is_visible( xpath => '//*[@id="submit"]' )) {
          sleep 1;
    };
    die "Timeout" if 0 > $retries;
    
    # Now the element exists
    $mech->click({xpath => '//*[@id="submit"]'});

Wait until an element disappears

Some sites display an hourglass or some other indicator to tell you to wait. To wait until such an element becomes invisible, use the following code:

    my $retries = 10;
    while ($retries-- and $mech->is_visible( xpath => '//*[@id="hourglass"]' )) {
          sleep 1;
    };
    die "Timeout while waiting for application" if 0 > $retries;
    
    # Now the hourglass is not visible anymore

UI interaction

Keep the tab open after your program quits

In the case that you want to navigate the user to a specific place and then take over manually, you can prevent the automatic closing of the browser tab. Either create your $mech object like this:

  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      autoclose => 0,
  );

or decide at runtime whether to close the tab:

  $mech->autoclose_tab(0);

This does currently not work.

Get notified when the current tab changes

    my $browser = $mech->repl->expr('window.getBrowser()');

    my $eventlistener = progress_listener(
        $browser,
        onLocationChange => \&onLocationChange,
    );

    while (1) {
        $mech->repl->poll();
        sleep 1;
    };

Images

Save the current page as PNG

This will take a "screenshot" which also includes plugins like Flash.

  my $png = $mech->content_as_png();
  open my $fh, '>', 'page.png'
      or die "Couldn't save to 'page.png': $!";
  binmode $fh;
  print {$fh} $png;
  close $fh;

Also see the file screenshot.pl included and installed through the distribution.

Save top left corner of the current page as PNG

  my $rect = {
    left  =>    0,
    top   =>    0,
    width  => 200,
    height => 200,
  };
  my $png = $mech->content_as_png(undef, $rect);
  open my $fh, '>', 'page.png'
      or die "Couldn't save to 'page.png': $!";
  binmode $fh;
  print {$fh} $png;
  close $fh;

Save a page element of the current page as PNG

  my $shiny = $mech->selector('#shiny', single => 1);
  my $png = $mech->element_as_png($shiny);
  open my $fh, '>', 'page.png'
      or die "Couldn't save to 'page.png': $!";
  binmode $fh;
  print {$fh} $png;
  close $fh;

HTTP Interaction

Send a different hostname to the server

If you are testing a new application deployment, it may become necessary to lie to the server about the name of the webserver you're requesting. You can easily switch the name around at the HTTP level by adding a custom Host: header:

  $mech->add_header(
      Host => 'http://example.com/',
  );
  $mech->get('http://1.2.3.4');
  # Ask the machine at 1.2.3.4 for the pages of example.com

Javascript

Check that your Page has no Javascript compile errors

  $mech->get('mypage');
  my @errors = map {$_->{message}} $mech->js_errors();
  if (@errors) {
      die "Found errors on page: @errors";
  };

Override the Javascript alert() function

  $mech->eval_in_page('alert("Hello");',
      { alert => sub { print "Captured alert: '@_'\n" } }
  );

Set a value without triggering Javascript events

Just pass empty lists for the lists of events to invoke

  $mech->field( 'myfield', 'myvalue', [], [] );

Get the text of an onclick handler (or other attributes)

When developing a web page, you may want to use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox to check the text value of the onclick attribute instead of treating it as an opaque function. To get at the text attribute, you will need the DOM function ->getAttribute().

    #!perl -w
    use strict;
    use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;

    my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new();
    $mech->update_html(<<HTML);
    <html>
    <h1>Test</h1>
    <a href="http://google.de">Google</a>
    <a href="asdf.html" onclick="javascript:alert('hello');">Say Hello</a>
    </html>
    HTML

    my @links = $mech->find_all_links_dom(url_regex => 'asdf.html');
    foreach my $link (@links) {
        print $link->getAttribute('onclick');
    };

Not working yet

Upload a file to an ftp server

Not implemented - this requires instantiating and passing a nsIURI object instead of a nsILocalFile .

You can use ->save_url to transfer files. $localname can be a local filename, a file:// URL or any other URL that allows uploads, like ftp://.

  $mech->save_url('file://path/to/my/file.txt'
      => 'ftp://myserver.example/my/file.txt');

AUTHOR

Max Maischein corion@cpan.org

Contributed examples contain the original author's name.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2009-2014 by Max Maischein corion@cpan.org.

All Rights Reserved. This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the same terms as Perl itself.

cpanm WWW::Mechanize::Firefox

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install WWW::Mechanize::Firefox