CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wget
Mark
Mark

Reputation: 367

Wget missing URL and

I'm new to Wget. Following online examples, I am trying to log in to a simple page using the following command:

wget --post-data='entry=85482564&submit3=LOGIN' \ --save-cookies=my-cookies.txt --keep-session-cookies \ https://www.abczyx.com

I get the following error:

SYSTEM_WGETRC = c:/progra~1/wget/etc/wgetrc
syswgetrc = C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32/etc/wgetrc
wget: missing URL
Usage: wget [OPTION]... [URL]...

Try `wget --help' for more options.
'submit3' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

I'm guessing that it doesn't quite recognize the &, but I am not sure how to fix it. I'm running Windows 7 cmd line. A side question, why use "\"? I see some examples with it, and some without it. I get issues with it.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 19667

Answers (5)

Muddasir Abbas
Muddasir Abbas

Reputation: 1819

with capital, V works for me. wget -V

Upvotes: 0

KulaGGin
KulaGGin

Reputation: 1252

Yes, there is a mistake(I'd say a very serious mistake) in wget's manual. In the manual it says:

Log in to the server.

This can be done only once. wget --save-cookies cookies.txt
--post-data 'user=foo&password=bar'
http://example.com/auth.php

So you do something like

wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \
--post-data 'user=yourUser12%23125&password=yourPassword12%241' \
http://www.websitelink.com/

Which ovbiously doesn't work for multiple reasons. First, you have to remove the \ symbols because they get in the way, second, you have to remove line breaks themselves because when you paste it in your command line tool, it will execute them just as if you pressed enter after each of the lines, which will result in trying to execute that command as 3 separate commands:

First:

wget --save-cookies cookies.txt \

Second:

--post-data 'user=yourUser12%23125&password=yourPassword12%241' \

Third:

http://www.websitelink.com/

Ok, so you remove the slashes and then realize that you have to also remove line breaks by yourself, but it still doesn't work. At this point it's pepehands in the air. So what do you do now? Somehow you have to automagically realize that the & symbol should be also percent-encoded. So you turn

Log in to the server.

This can be done only once. wget --save-cookies cookies.txt
--post-data 'user=foo&password=bar'
http://example.com/auth.php

To this:

wget --save-cookies cookies.txt --post-data 'user=yourUser12%23125%26password=yourPassword12%241' http://www.websitelink.com/

And it starts working!

Upvotes: 0

Simon U
Simon U

Reputation: 81

For me what worked was change & to %26 as in --post-data 'login=foo%26pass=bar'

also if you are posting an email addrress be sure to change the @ to %40

Other codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding

Upvotes: 0

Sergei Petrov
Sergei Petrov

Reputation: 11

In Windows the escape sign is the caret, ^, not backslash, \. So in the batch file it should look like 'entry=85482564^&submit3=LOGIN'.

Upvotes: 1

Mark
Mark

Reputation: 367

After doing some reading, I found that because it is MS DOS, they do not interpret the special characters correctly. Adding quotes around it ("&") did the trick.

Upvotes: 3

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