6 ms·

Mechanize 0.2.0 released

48 points by iamelgringo 17y ago

alttab 17y ago
We use the mechanize ruby gem for integration with other sites and web applications - doing things that are not exposed through APIs but only interface. Really cool! Way better than Net::HTTP
croby 17y ago
This is a fantastic library. Great to see that it's still moving along. Now, if it only had a way to execute javascript....
- mumrah 17y ago
  I imagine you could use python-spidermonkey to execute isolated bits of JS. But yes, getting the window object into context in python would be super useful
olaf 17y ago
Unfortunately, Perl-WWW::Mechanize does not yet handle Javascript, has anybody (Perl, Python, Ruby) a solution for that? DOM+Javascript simulation comes to my mind. Or maybe a fully controllable browser component (where DOM and JS are built-in) with an API. Anyone with first-hand experience?
- paraschopra 17y ago
  You can use Java based HTMLUnit. Emulates a headless browser complete with Javascript and DOM.
  - kunley 17y ago
    There's awesome JRuby wrapper around it: Celerity I went the route: Mechanize -> HtmlUnit (from inside Clojure to be more scriptable) -> ended with Celerity and most happy.
- iamelgringo 17y ago
  Have you looked at Selenium? It might have more of what you're looking for.
  - hugs 17y ago
    Things like Mechanize and HTMLUnit are what I call "HTTP-only protocol drivers" and are not a true-fidelity simulation of the HTML+JavaScript environment. This is exactly the reason I created Selenium in the first place. I had regression bugs in IE and Mozilla that I needed to verify were fixed in the actual browsers. An emulated browser environment like Mechanize or HTMLUnit isn't a real browser that users actually use, so it doesn't solve the regression testing problem I had. Best of both worlds these days is in driving a headless WebKit (a true browser driver that includes the JS interaction), which will be coming in Selenium 2.
    - olaf 17y ago
      Thanks, Selenium can replay user interaction sessions, but I need to set e.g. form fields programmatically, is that possible? Maybe CPAN/Gtk2::WebKit is also an option.
      - ericb 17y ago
        Yes, it is possible, and fairly routine in Selenium. Also, you can execute arbitrary Javascript for whatever else you may need.
      - aaronblohowiak 17y ago
        you can even use your recorded sessions to spit out the code that you can then use as a template for your code
  - olaf 17y ago
    Not yet, thanks for your tip.
  - aantix 17y ago
    Yes, along the same lines, you could use Waitr. http://www.layeredthoughts.com/automation/how-to-write-your-first-ruby-web-bot-in-watir-scraping-weather-com http://www.layeredthoughts.com/automation/how-to-write-your-...
- jbarnette 17y ago
  Aaron Patterson (the maintainer of Ruby's mechanize) and I have been working on this on and off for a few years. Take a look at http://github.com/jbarnette/johnson http://github.com/jbarnette/johnson, http://github.com/mynyml/harmony http://github.com/mynyml/harmony, and http://github.com/mynyml/holygrail http://github.com/mynyml/holygrail to see where things are heading.
  - olaf 17y ago
    Thanks, harmony looks interesting, can actions like "set form field", "click button" etc. be programmed?
- tomjen3 17y ago
  Internet Explorer. No seriously, IE is fully controllable via COM and you can use pretty much any scripting language you want (the python COM api is pretty nice, so is the ruby one). Steve Yeggey had a post on the subject some time ago: http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/scripting-windows-apps http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/scripting-windows-a... BTW, MS Office has a similar feature.
whiskeyjack 17y ago
Nifty. Always glad to see cross-pollination in the Ruby/Python/Perl world.
sunkencity 17y ago
It is such an awesome library. Totally rocks. To get a quick glimpse of how easy it is to work with look at this screencast: http://railscasts.com/episodes/191-mechanize http://railscasts.com/episodes/191-mechanize
lunchbox 17y ago
Also worth checking out is Scrapy: http://scrapy.org/ http://scrapy.org/ It's a Python scraping framework based on Twisted. It lets you use some of Mechanize's API to describe the scraping jobs.

48 points by iamelgringo 17y ago

We use the mechanize ruby gem for integration with other sites and web applications - doing things that are not exposed through APIs but only interface. Really cool! Way better than Net::HTTP

croby 17y ago

This is a fantastic library. Great to see that it's still moving along. Now, if it only had a way to execute javascript....

mumrah 17y ago
I imagine you could use python-spidermonkey to execute isolated bits of JS. But yes, getting the window object into context in python would be super useful

olaf 17y ago

Unfortunately, Perl-WWW::Mechanize does not yet handle Javascript, has anybody (Perl, Python, Ruby) a solution for that? DOM+Javascript simulation comes to my mind. Or maybe a fully controllable browser component (where DOM and JS are built-in) with an API. Anyone with first-hand experience?

paraschopra 17y ago
You can use Java based HTMLUnit. Emulates a headless browser complete with Javascript and DOM.
- kunley 17y ago
  There's awesome JRuby wrapper around it: Celerity I went the route: Mechanize -> HtmlUnit (from inside Clojure to be more scriptable) -> ended with Celerity and most happy.
iamelgringo 17y ago
Have you looked at Selenium? It might have more of what you're looking for.
- hugs 17y ago
  Things like Mechanize and HTMLUnit are what I call "HTTP-only protocol drivers" and are not a true-fidelity simulation of the HTML+JavaScript environment. This is exactly the reason I created Selenium in the first place. I had regression bugs in IE and Mozilla that I needed to verify were fixed in the actual browsers. An emulated browser environment like Mechanize or HTMLUnit isn't a real browser that users actually use, so it doesn't solve the regression testing problem I had. Best of both worlds these days is in driving a headless WebKit (a true browser driver that includes the JS interaction), which will be coming in Selenium 2.
  - olaf 17y ago
    Thanks, Selenium can replay user interaction sessions, but I need to set e.g. form fields programmatically, is that possible? Maybe CPAN/Gtk2::WebKit is also an option.
    - ericb 17y ago
      Yes, it is possible, and fairly routine in Selenium. Also, you can execute arbitrary Javascript for whatever else you may need.
    - aaronblohowiak 17y ago
      you can even use your recorded sessions to spit out the code that you can then use as a template for your code
- olaf 17y ago
  Not yet, thanks for your tip.
- aantix 17y ago
  Yes, along the same lines, you could use Waitr. http://www.layeredthoughts.com/automation/how-to-write-your-first-ruby-web-bot-in-watir-scraping-weather-com http://www.layeredthoughts.com/automation/how-to-write-your-...
jbarnette 17y ago
Aaron Patterson (the maintainer of Ruby's mechanize) and I have been working on this on and off for a few years. Take a look at http://github.com/jbarnette/johnson http://github.com/jbarnette/johnson, http://github.com/mynyml/harmony http://github.com/mynyml/harmony, and http://github.com/mynyml/holygrail http://github.com/mynyml/holygrail to see where things are heading.
- olaf 17y ago
  Thanks, harmony looks interesting, can actions like "set form field", "click button" etc. be programmed?
tomjen3 17y ago
Internet Explorer. No seriously, IE is fully controllable via COM and you can use pretty much any scripting language you want (the python COM api is pretty nice, so is the ruby one). Steve Yeggey had a post on the subject some time ago: http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/scripting-windows-apps http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/scripting-windows-a... BTW, MS Office has a similar feature.

whiskeyjack 17y ago

Nifty. Always glad to see cross-pollination in the Ruby/Python/Perl world.

sunkencity 17y ago

It is such an awesome library. Totally rocks. To get a quick glimpse of how easy it is to work with look at this screencast: http://railscasts.com/episodes/191-mechanize http://railscasts.com/episodes/191-mechanize

lunchbox 17y ago

Also worth checking out is Scrapy: http://scrapy.org/ http://scrapy.org/ It's a Python scraping framework based on Twisted. It lets you use some of Mechanize's API to describe the scraping jobs.