TITLE
http_post - Send POST query to HTTP server
VERSION
1.0
AUTHOR
Thomas Aglassinger <uais57el6tli3001@sneakemail.com>
DESCRIPTION
Http_post is a little command line tool to retrieve content from a
web page via POST queries. It's mainly useful for web authors and
people with HTML/HTTP knowledge who want to automatize repetitive
tasks involving HTML forms.
In order to use it, you have to know the exact location of a form,
and the names of input fields. You can learn them by looking at the
HTML code, especially the stuff included in <form>....</form>.
If you don't know how to do this, this tool is of no use for you.
Maybe aminet:dev/gg/wget-bin.lha is what you are looking for.
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
- AmigaOS 3.x
- AmiTCP or Miami (uses bsdsocket.library)
AVAILABILITY
- Aminet mirrors, for example
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/comm/www/http_post
PRICE
Freeware.
DISTRIBUTABILITY
Freely distributable, as long no files are added or changed.
USAGE
Start your TCP/IP stack, open a CLI and find some web page with a
form you want to get data from. Check the HTML code, and obtain the
URI of the script that processes the form, together with names of
the input fields. (Again, if you don't know how to do this, this
tool is not for you.)
Http_post needs the following parameters, in the exact order:
- your email address
- the location of the script
- any number of "name=value" pairs describing the input fields
The email address is sent in a "From:" header, so if you screw
something up at the server side, the admin can contact you. While
you can specify any address you want, it is generally not a good
idea to specify fake addresses and deliberately screw something up
because an admin can trace you back anyway. It only makes him more
angry.
The location of the script has to start with "http://".
The "name=value" pairs each represent one input field "name" as it
you would have entered "value". Don't use URI escapes here, for
example don't type %20 to represent a space. Instead, use a space
and put the whole pair between quotes. Use CLI escapes, for example
"*N" to represent a linefeed. Don't leave a space before or after
the "=". The name is usually case sensitive.
Example (to be entered as one line in CLI):
http_post you@host.org
http://www.some.test/order.pl
user_id=hugo
product_id=134
amount=1
The server status goes to stderr, the content of the server reply
goes to stdout. Thus, you can redirect the content to a file by
using ">file.txt" or whatever. In case of errors, the server usually
sends details in the content. These will also go to stdout, not
stderr.
If you want to use the output in some other tool, consider prepeding
a <BASE> tag to resolve relative URIs like the document still is at
the server. (Hint: "echo" and ">>")
KNOWN BUGS
Http_post is completely dumb, and will not follow any server
redirections. It cannot handle Secure-HTTP, deal with cookies, use
additional proxies, etc etc.
You can only specify simple input fields, thus you cannot upload
files.
Usabilitywise, the whole thing is crap.
SUPPORT
Don't ask me about certain forms. Figure them out yourself.
If you find any bugs, you can contact me at the address mentioned in
the AUTHOR section.
HISTORY
Version 1.0, 1-May-2001
- initial release
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