read from an external web page

canes_venatici · May 5, 2006

Hi -

I'm new to CGI and perl. I am trying to write a script that will read
in the source of a webpage on an external server, look for a specific
string, and then output based on the presence of that string. I've
tried using a pipe to get this done but haven't got it to work. I
can't figure out how to read in the source from an external web page.

Example: lets say i want to read in the source code from
http://www.google.com and look for a string in that code.

I've tried

open (HTML, "http://www.google.com") || print "Can't open page";
$temp_var = <HTML>;
close(HTML);

My output is ALWAYS "Can't open page". I've tried opening to
"http:\/\/www.google.com" with the same results... Am i formatting it
wrong? Is there another way to do this? Is this even possible?

Again this is only an example... i will be doing this on an Internal
and internal server only.. i just used www.google.com as an example.

any help is surely welcome.

Austin
(e-mail address removed)

A. Sinan Unur · May 5, 2006

I'm new to CGI and perl.

CGI is not Perl and Perl is not CGI.

I am trying to write a script that will read
in the source of a webpage on an external server, look for a specific
string, and then output based on the presence of that string. I've
tried using a pipe to get this done but haven't got it to work. I
can't figure out how to read in the source from an external web page.

Example: lets say i want to read in the source code from
http://www.google.com and look for a string in that code.

I've tried

open (HTML, "http://www.google.com") || print "Can't open page";

open is use to open local files.

$temp_var = <HTML>;
close(HTML);

If the call to open fails, it is not wise to go on your merry way
attempt to read from the filehandle.

My output is ALWAYS "Can't open page". I've tried opening to
"http:\/\/www.google.com" with the same results...

Why do you think this would make a difference?

You can use LWP::Simple to do this.

However, given your question, I am also going to strongly urge you to
actually get a good book, and learn the basics of Perl.

Sinan

--
A. Sinan Unur <[email protected]>
(remove .invalid and reverse each component for email address)

comp.lang.perl.misc guidelines on the WWW:
http://augustmail.com/~tadmc/clpmisc/clpmisc_guidelines.html

John W. Krahn · May 5, 2006

canes_venatici said:
Hi -

I'm new to CGI and perl. I am trying to write a script that will read
in the source of a webpage on an external server, look for a specific
string, and then output based on the presence of that string. I've
tried using a pipe to get this done but haven't got it to work. I
can't figure out how to read in the source from an external web page.

Example: lets say i want to read in the source code from
http://www.google.com and look for a string in that code.

I've tried

open (HTML, "http://www.google.com") || print "Can't open page";
$temp_var = <HTML>;
close(HTML);

open() only works on files that are available locally.

perldoc lwpcook
perldoc LWP

John

canes_venatici · May 5, 2006

Thanks. I got it!

Trax · May 5, 2006

http://perl.maxipointservers.net/perldiveraf87.html?action=2010&module=LWP::Simple

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read from an external web page

canes_venatici

A. Sinan Unur

John W. Krahn

canes_venatici

Trax

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