WWW::Mechanize and Facebook login

davidov0009 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Dear Monks,

I am attempting to login to facebook using WWW::Mechanize but when I test to see the resulting page using $mech->uri() it outputs the page that would result form incorrect login information. Here is the code I am using:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use WWW::Mechanize;

my $url = "http://www.facebook.com";
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();

$mech->get($url);
$mech->submit_form(
        form_name => "loginform",
        fields    => {
                        email => $ARGV[0],
                        pass  => $ARGV[1]
                     }
);

print $mech->uri() . "\n";
[download]

I am unclear as to why it is unable to login, assuming the info provided is valid. Also, mech-dump spits back that the return type of the other login page for facebook (not used in this script) is of content type text/plain NOT of text/html. Is that a cause for concern when using Mech?

Any help appreciated.

use strict;
use CGI;
[download]

Comment on WWW::Mechanize and Facebook login Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: WWW::Mechanize and Facebook login by learnperl (Acolyte) on Dec 11, 2007 at 05:33 UTC
I am not that expert on WWW::Mechanize but lately I have been trying do something similar to this, and so far I haven't had much luck with it. But looks to me your issue is JavaScript. If you take closer look at the "loginform" they call a quicklogin() function. WWW::Mechanize doesn't deal with javascript. Search for LWP on cpan and try LWP->agent. `Your problem is right here... (at least the way I think...) <form method="post" name="loginform" action="https://login.facebook.co +m/login.php" onsubmit="quicklogin();">` [download] Thanks LearnPerl	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: WWW::Mechanize and Facebook login by davidov0009 (Scribe) on Dec 13, 2007 at 03:53 UTC
I have successfully got LWP to login. This seems to work well: (at least the login stuff) http://mattdanger.net/code/facebook-status/facebook-status.pl Your going to need Crypt::SSLeay installed though. `use strict; use CGI;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: WWW::Mechanize and Facebook login by budman (Sexton) on Apr 27, 2009 at 06:39 UTC
Hi, I know this is an older thread, but thought it may help others. Here is a sample using Mechanize - you do need the Crypt::SSLeay module installed for it to work. use strict; use WWW::Mechanize; use HTTP::Cookies; my $url = "http://www.facebook.com"; my $appurl = "http://apps.facebook.com/inthemafia"; my $username = 'your@email'; my $password = 'yourpass'; my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new(); $mech->cookie_jar(HTTP::Cookies->new()); $mech->get($url); $mech->form_name('menubar_login'); $mech->field(email => $username); $mech->field(pass => $password); $mech->click(); my $facebook_content = $mech->content(); # go to an app url $mech->get($appurl); my $app_content = $mech->content(); print "$app_content\n"; [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: WWW::Mechanize and Facebook login by Anonymous Monk on Jul 22, 2009 at 22:13 UTC
Re: WWW::Mechanize and Facebook login by Kanji (Parson) on Dec 11, 2007 at 08:47 UTC
Depending on the user agent you specify⁽¹⁾, Facebook's successful/failed login URLs can actually be the same, so you probably want to check the content of what was returned, rather than location. --k. ⁽¹⁾ See `$mech->agent_alias('...')` or the `agent` argument to `WWW::Mechanize->new`.	[reply]


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