Problem with <SELECT MULTIPLE> in Mech (maybe in HTTP::Form as well?)

I'm having problems with a element in a form, and this seems
like it is not just Mech, but a problem with HTTP::Form as well. In short,
this item is a object and when I first tried to set a
value, I got error messages, so I changed my code to retreive the object and
print out the possible values and the value names. It did not print out the
values available in the code, so I changed my code to retreive an array of
objects and found that this one object was being treated as
a number of OPTION objects. The HTML was not complete (the tags
were missing), so I got the page, fixed it with a few regexes, then replaced
the HTML, and that didn't fix the problem. After experimenting, I found that
once I removed the MULTIPLE keyword from the tag, the item was then
seen as one object, and I could use it as expected. I need to know if I'm
doing something wrong, or why a is not treated as one
object, if this is a bug I need to report, or, if not, how I can
select ONE value in a object. I've included much more
below.

Here's the code for the form object I'm dealing with (the form itself is okay,
it seems to be this and a few other objects that are the
problem:



East End
West End
Southside
Northside


When I cleaned it up, it was like this:



East End
West End
Southside
Northside


This did not make a difference. The only thing that did make a difference was
when I removed "MULTIPLE". I changed my code to set the value to
get the OPTION object(s), step through each one, and list the possible values
and value names. Here's the subroutine I used:


sub setselectname {
my ($form, $option, $name, $val, @obj, @val);
($name, $val) = @_;
if (!checkformelement($name, "option")) {return 0;}
$form = $mech->current_form();
@opt = $form->find_input($name, "option");
print "--------------------------------------------------------\n" ;
print "Option name: $name, Count found: $#opt\n";
foreach (@opt) {
print "Option:\n";
@val = $_->possible_values();
foreach (@val) {
print "\tValue: $_\n";
}
@val = $_->value_names();
foreach (@val) {
print "\tName: $_\n";
}
}
return 1;
}

Originally, to set the objects value I used:

$mech->select($name, $val);

And once I realized the problem was with the MULTIPLE keyword, I tried:

$mech->select($name, \@val)

Just in case it needed an array (only the first array element was set).

And here's the code it outputs if the MULTIPLE keyword is left in:

--------------------------------------------------------
Option name: locatoin, Count found: 4
Option:
Value:
Value:
Name: off
Name:
Option:
Value:
Value: 1
Name: off
Name: East End
Option:
Value:
Value: 2
Name: off
Name: West End
Option:
Value:
Value: 3
Name: off
Name: Southside
Option:
Value:
Value: 4
Name: off
Name: Northside


And here's the code it outputs if the MULTIPLE keyword is left out:

--------------------------------------------------------
Option name: location Count found: 0
Option:
Value:
Value: 1
Value: 2
Value: 3
Value: 4
Name:
Name: East End
Name: West End
Name: Southside
Name: Northside

So if the MULTIPLE keyword is in, it sees each as a separate item. I
can understand that, but there is no way for me to access the entire
... object as one form element so I can set the value of the
object to one of the items. Am I doing something wrong?

I'm under a deadline and everything was going great (I even thought I'd
actually get a weekend off!) until this came up. I need to resolve it, so
any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Hal

Re: Problem with <SELECT MULTIPLE> in Mech (maybe in HTTP::Form as well?)

am 14.07.2005 22:26:58 von wpollans

$option->{'menu'}[1]{'value'} is the value of the option

I got all of the options and walked thru the list till the value
matched the one I wanted and then using $option->check worked for me -
where $option is the option to be selected.

I "found" the check method in the code for HTML::Form



On Jul 14, 2005, at 12:46 PM, Hal Vaughan wrote:

> I'm having problems with a

element in a form, and
> this seems
> like it is not just Mech, but a problem with HTTP::Form as well. In
> short,
> this item is a object and when I first tried to set a
> value, I got error messages, so I changed my code to retreive the
> object and
> print out the possible values and the value names. It did not print
> out the
> values available in the code, so I changed my code to retreive an
> array of
> objects and found that this one object was being
> treated as
> a number of OPTION objects. The HTML was not complete (the
> tags
> were missing), so I got the page, fixed it with a few regexes, then
> replaced
> the HTML, and that didn't fix the problem. After experimenting, I
> found that
> once I removed the MULTIPLE keyword from the tag, the item
> was then
> seen as one object, and I could use it as expected. I need to know if
> I'm
> doing something wrong, or why a is not treated as one
> object, if this is a bug I need to report, or, if not, how I
> can
> select ONE value in a object. I've included much
> more
> below.
>
> Here's the code for the form object I'm dealing with (the form itself
> is okay,
> it seems to be this and a few other objects that are
> the
> problem:
>
>
>
> East End
> West End
> Southside
> Northside
>
>
> When I cleaned it up, it was like this:
>
>
>
> East End
> West End
> Southside
> Northside
>
>
> This did not make a difference. The only thing that did make a
> difference was
> when I removed "MULTIPLE". I changed my code to set the
> value to
> get the OPTION object(s), step through each one, and list the possible
> values
> and value names. Here's the subroutine I used:
>
>
> sub setselectname {
> my ($form, $option, $name, $val, @obj, @val);
> ($name, $val) = @_;
> if (!checkformelement($name, "option")) {return 0;}
> $form = $mech->current_form();
> @opt = $form->find_input($name, "option");
> print "--------------------------------------------------------\n" ;
> print "Option name: $name, Count found: $#opt\n";
> foreach (@opt) {
> print "Option:\n";
> @val = $_->possible_values();
> foreach (@val) {
> print "\tValue: $_\n";
> }
> @val = $_->value_names();
> foreach (@val) {
> print "\tName: $_\n";
> }
> }
> return 1;
> }
>
> Originally, to set the objects value I used:
>
> $mech->select($name, $val);
>
> And once I realized the problem was with the MULTIPLE keyword, I tried:
>
> $mech->select($name, \@val)
>
> Just in case it needed an array (only the first array element was set).
>
> And here's the code it outputs if the MULTIPLE keyword is left in:
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Option name: locatoin, Count found: 4
> Option:
> Value:
> Value:
> Name: off
> Name:
> Option:
> Value:
> Value: 1
> Name: off
> Name: East End
> Option:
> Value:
> Value: 2
> Name: off
> Name: West End
> Option:
> Value:
> Value: 3
> Name: off
> Name: Southside
> Option:
> Value:
> Value: 4
> Name: off
> Name: Northside
>
>
> And here's the code it outputs if the MULTIPLE keyword is left out:
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Option name: location Count found: 0
> Option:
> Value:
> Value: 1
> Value: 2
> Value: 3
> Value: 4
> Name:
> Name: East End
> Name: West End
> Name: Southside
> Name: Northside
>
> So if the MULTIPLE keyword is in, it sees each as a separate
> item. I
> can understand that, but there is no way for me to access the entire
> ... object as one form element so I can set the value
> of the
> object to one of the items. Am I doing something
> wrong?
>
> I'm under a deadline and everything was going great (I even thought I'd
> actually get a weekend off!) until this came up. I need to resolve
> it, so
> any help is greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Hal
>

Re: Problem with <SELECT MULTIPLE> in Mech (maybe in HTTP::Form as well?)

am 14.07.2005 23:01:40 von Hal

On Thursday 14 July 2005 04:26 pm, Warren Pollans wrote:
> $option->{'menu'}[1]{'value'} is the value of the option
>
> I got all of the options and walked thru the list till the value
> matched the one I wanted and then using $option->check worked for me -
> where $option is the option to be selected.
>
> I "found" the check method in the code for HTML::Form

That gives me the options and lets me read them as one unit.

Have you then submitted the page and seen if the server responded to it?

(I'll be trying that soon, but once I submit, I get a report that costs money,
so I want to make sure everything is right and I'm not sending through a
bunch of trial runs unless I'm pretty sure they'll work.)


Does anyone have examples of

objects (like a url or sample
HTML code) that don't have this problem, or is it a bug that nobody's
realized yet because there aren't many cases of people needing to use
multiple selects? (Or is it a "feature" that I just don't fully appreciate?)

Thanks!

Hal


> On Jul 14, 2005, at 12:46 PM, Hal Vaughan wrote:
> > I'm having problems with a element in a form, and
> > this seems
> > like it is not just Mech, but a problem with HTTP::Form as well. In
> > short,
> > this item is a object and when I first tried to set a
> > value, I got error messages, so I changed my code to retreive the
> > object and
> > print out the possible values and the value names. It did not print
> > out the
> > values available in the code, so I changed my code to retreive an
> > array of
> > objects and found that this one object was being
> > treated as
> > a number of OPTION objects. The HTML was not complete (the
> > tags
> > were missing), so I got the page, fixed it with a few regexes, then
> > replaced
> > the HTML, and that didn't fix the problem. After experimenting, I
> > found that
> > once I removed the MULTIPLE keyword from the tag, the item
> > was then
> > seen as one object, and I could use it as expected. I need to know if
> > I'm
> > doing something wrong, or why a is not treated as one
> > object, if this is a bug I need to report, or, if not, how I
> > can
> > select ONE value in a object. I've included much
> > more
> > below.
> >
> > Here's the code for the form object I'm dealing with (the form itself
> > is okay,
> > it seems to be this and a few other objects that are
> > the
> > problem:
> >
> >
> >
> > East End
> > West End
> > Southside
> > Northside
> >
> >
> > When I cleaned it up, it was like this:
> >
> >
> >
> > East End
> > West End
> > Southside
> > Northside
> >
> >
> > This did not make a difference. The only thing that did make a
> > difference was
> > when I removed "MULTIPLE". I changed my code to set the
> > value to
> > get the OPTION object(s), step through each one, and list the possible
> > values
> > and value names. Here's the subroutine I used:
> >
> >
> > sub setselectname {
> > my ($form, $option, $name, $val, @obj, @val);
> > ($name, $val) = @_;
> > if (!checkformelement($name, "option")) {return 0;}
> > $form = $mech->current_form();
> > @opt = $form->find_input($name, "option");
> > print "--------------------------------------------------------\n" ;
> > print "Option name: $name, Count found: $#opt\n";
> > foreach (@opt) {
> > print "Option:\n";
> > @val = $_->possible_values();
> > foreach (@val) {
> > print "\tValue: $_\n";
> > }
> > @val = $_->value_names();
> > foreach (@val) {
> > print "\tName: $_\n";
> > }
> > }
> > return 1;
> > }
> >
> > Originally, to set the objects value I used:
> >
> > $mech->select($name, $val);
> >
> > And once I realized the problem was with the MULTIPLE keyword, I tried:
> >
> > $mech->select($name, \@val)
> >
> > Just in case it needed an array (only the first array element was set).
> >
> > And here's the code it outputs if the MULTIPLE keyword is left in:
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------
> > Option name: locatoin, Count found: 4
> > Option:
> > Value:
> > Value:
> > Name: off
> > Name:
> > Option:
> > Value:
> > Value: 1
> > Name: off
> > Name: East End
> > Option:
> > Value:
> > Value: 2
> > Name: off
> > Name: West End
> > Option:
> > Value:
> > Value: 3
> > Name: off
> > Name: Southside
> > Option:
> > Value:
> > Value: 4
> > Name: off
> > Name: Northside
> >
> >
> > And here's the code it outputs if the MULTIPLE keyword is left out:
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------
> > Option name: location Count found: 0
> > Option:
> > Value:
> > Value: 1
> > Value: 2
> > Value: 3
> > Value: 4
> > Name:
> > Name: East End
> > Name: West End
> > Name: Southside
> > Name: Northside
> >
> > So if the MULTIPLE keyword is in, it sees each as a separate
> > item. I
> > can understand that, but there is no way for me to access the entire
> > ... object as one form element so I can set the value
> > of the
> > object to one of the items. Am I doing something
> > wrong?
> >
> > I'm under a deadline and everything was going great (I even thought I'd
> > actually get a weekend off!) until this came up. I need to resolve
> > it, so
> > any help is greatly appreciated!
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Hal

Re: Problem with <SELECT MULTIPLE> in Mech (maybe in HTTP::Form as well?)

am 14.07.2005 23:04:38 von Andy

On Thu, Jul 14, 2005 at 05:01:40PM -0400, Hal Vaughan (hal@thresholddigital.com) wrote:
> Does anyone have examples of

objects (like a url or sample
> HTML code) that don't have this problem, or is it a bug that nobody's
> realized yet because there aren't many cases of people needing to use
> multiple selects? (Or is it a "feature" that I just don't fully appreciate?)

I THINK it's an issue down at the HTML::Form level.

--
Andy Lester => andy@petdance.com => www.petdance.com => AIM:petdance

Re: Problem with <SELECT MULTIPLE> in Mech (maybe in HTTP::Form as well?)

On Thursday 14 July 2005 05:04 pm, Andy Lester wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 14, 2005 at 05:01:40PM -0400, Hal Vaughan
(hal@thresholddigital.com) wrote:
> > Does anyone have examples of objects (like a url or
> > sample HTML code) that don't have this problem, or is it a bug that
> > nobody's realized yet because there aren't many cases of people needing
> > to use multiple selects? (Or is it a "feature" that I just don't fully
> > appreciate?)
>
> I THINK it's an issue down at the HTML::Form level.

I figured it was more at the form level, since the problem persisted with the
Option object, which was from the Form object. After reading your post, I
re-read the HTTP::Form doc on CPAN. I missed this the first time around, but
I did find this:

"For a element without the multiple attribute there will be one input
object of type of "option". For a element there will be one
input object for each contained element. Each one of these option
objects will have the same name."

So I figure this isn't a bug, but is the way this is handled. It's damned
frustrating. It means you have to handle setting values for a multiple> completely differently from a non-multiple select.

The part I find frustrating is that I won't know how well this works until I
submit the form to the site I'm dealing with, and that means I pay for a
report. Is there some way to find out, before calling $form->submit() what
will be POSTed when the form/page is submitted?

Hal

Re: Problem with <SELECT MULTIPLE> in Mech (maybe in HTTP::Form aswell?)

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005, Hal Vaughan wrote:

The part I find frustrating is that I won't know how well this works until I
submit the form to the site I'm dealing with, and that means I pay for a
report. Is there some way to find out, before calling $form->submit() what
will be POSTed when the form/page is submitted?

isnt there an as_string method on the request object?

mfp

Hal


--
gedanken

Re: Problem with <SELECT MULTIPLE> in Mech (maybe in HTTP::Form as well?)

On Thu, Jul 14, 2005 at 05:16:53PM -0400, Hal Vaughan (hal@thresholddigital.com) wrote:
> The part I find frustrating is that I won't know how well this works until I
> submit the form to the site I'm dealing with, and that means I pay for a
> report. Is there some way to find out, before calling $form->submit() what
> will be POSTed when the form/page is submitted?

Sure. Make your own HTTP::Request object. Do the dirty work that Mech
does for you.

xoxo,
Andy

--
Andy Lester => andy@petdance.com => www.petdance.com => AIM:petdance

Re: Problem with <SELECT MULTIPLE> in Mech (maybe in HTTP::Form as well?)

On Thursday 14 July 2005 05:30 pm, Gedanken wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jul 2005, Hal Vaughan wrote:
>
> The part I find frustrating is that I won't know how well this works until
> I submit the form to the site I'm dealing with, and that means I pay for a
> report. Is there some way to find out, before calling $form->submit() what
> will be POSTed when the form/page is submitted?
>
> isnt there an as_string method on the request object?

I have to plead ignorance here -- I can't even see how I can get a request
object from Mech before it is sent (or even at all).

Hal

Re: Problem with <SELECT MULTIPLE> in Mech (maybe in HTTP::Form as well?)

On Thursday 14 July 2005 05:46 pm, Andy Lester wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 14, 2005 at 05:16:53PM -0400, Hal Vaughan=20
(hal@thresholddigital.com) wrote:
> > The part I find frustrating is that I won't know how well this works
> > until I submit the form to the site I'm dealing with, and that means I
> > pay for a report. Is there some way to find out, before calling
> > $form->submit() what will be POSTed when the form/page is submitted?
>
> Sure. Make your own HTTP::Request object. Do the dirty work that Mech
> does for you.
>
> xoxo,
> Andy

I'd rather not. =A0In this case, since there doesn't seem to be a way to se=
t a=20
, I'm doing it myself. =A0Once that is done, I'm trying to=
=20
read the object and see if it has been changed, and so far I can't verify i=
t. =A0
That's why I want to find some way to verify just what is being sent out.

I've tried (after setting the correct form)

$mech->select($name, $val)

and

$mech->select($name, \@val)

with a 1 element array, and neither is working. =A0I realize that HTTP::For=
m=20
handles multiple selects differently, but it seems impossible to set a=20
through Mech. =A0Please tell me I've missed something in =
what=20
I'm doing with the above methods and that there is an answer that I, in my=
=20
exhausted state, am missing. =A0The first method above works perfectly -- a=
s=20
long as the isn't multiple.

Hal