Submit without the use of a submit button, Mechanize
Question: So, I started out with Mechanize, and apparently the first thing I try it on
is a monkey-rhino-level high JavaScript navigated site.

Now the thing I'm stuck on is submitting the form.

Normally I'd do a submit using the Mechanize built-in submit() function.

    
    
    import mechanize
    
    browser = mechanize.Browser()
    browser.select_form(name = 'foo')
    browser.form['bar'] = 'baz'
    browser.submit()
    

This way it'd use the submit button that's available in the HTML form.

However, the site I'm stuck on had to be one that doesn't use HTML submit
buttons... No, they're trying to be JavaScript gurus, and do a submit via
JavaScript.

The usual submit() doesn't seem to work with this.

So... Is there a way to get around this?

Any help is appreciated. Many thanks!

\--[Edit]--

The JavaScript function I'm stuck on:

    
    
    function foo(bar, baz) {
        var qux = document.forms["qux"];
    
        qux.bar.value = bar.split("$").join(":");
    qux.baz.value = baz;
    qux.submit();
    }
    

What I did in Python (and what doesn't work):

    
    
    def foo(browser, bar, baz):
        qux = browser.select_form("qux")
    
        browser.form[bar] = ":".join(bar.split("$"))
        browser.form[baz] = baz
        browser.submit()
    


Answer: Three ways:

The first method is preferable if the form is submitted using the POST/GET
method, otherwise you'll have to resort to second and third method.

  1. Submitting the form manually and check for POST/GET requests, their parameters and the post url required to submit the form. Popular tools for checking headers are the Live HTTP headers extension and Firebug extension for Firefox, and Developer Tools extension for Chrome. An example of using the POST/GET method:
    
        import mechanize
    import urllib
    
    browser = mechanize.Browser()
    #These are the parameters you've got from checking with the aforementioned tools
    parameters = {'parameter1' : 'your content',
                  'parameter2' : 'a constant value',
                  'parameter3' : 'unique characters you might need to extract from the page'
                 }
    #Encode the parameters
    data = urllib.urlencode(parameters)
    #Submit the form (POST request). You get the post_url and the request type(POST/GET) the same way with the parameters.
    browser.open(post_url,data)
    #Submit the form (GET request)
    browser.open(post_url + '%s' % data)
    

  2. Rewrite the javascript and execute it in Python. Check out spidermonkey.

  3. Emulate a full browser. Check out Selenium and Windmill.

