Post message with WWW::Mechanize for application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Question

I'm trying to post a message to a webpage but I can't figure out what the name of the form is? I am trying www::mechanize but I would use another module if its a better method. I am able to pull the authenticated page and see the current message posted. I dumped the forms on the page so here is the output:

$VAR2 = bless( {
                 'default_charset' => 'UTF-8',
                 'enctype' => 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
                 'accept_charset' => 'UNKNOWN',
                 'action' => bless( do{\(my $o = 'http://myffleague.football.cbssports.com/setup/commish-tools/messaging/edit-league-message')}, 'URI::http' ),
                 'method' => 'POST',
                 'attr' => {
                             'style' => 'display:inline',
                             'method' => 'post'
                           },
                 'inputs' => [
                               bless( {
                                        'readonly' => 1,
                                        'value_name' => '',
                                        'value' => '1',
                                        'name' => 'dummy::form',
                                        'id' => 'dummy::form',
                                        'type' => 'hidden'
                                      }, 'HTML::Form::TextInput' ),
                               bless( {
                                        'readonly' => 1,
                                        'value_name' => '',
                                        'value' => 'form',
                                        'name' => 'form::form',
                                        'id' => 'form::form',
                                        'type' => 'hidden'
                                      }, 'HTML::Form::TextInput' ),
                               bless( {
                                        'readonly' => 1,
                                        'value_name' => '',
                                        'value' => 'U2FsdGVkX1_UaI-cThHnk4dukS_AYpTgYLwzWpW7wsoYNpHOMGPSzno0W5zhDRSt',
                                        'name' => 'form::_eid_',
                                        'id' => 'form::_eid_',
                                        'type' => 'hidden'
                                      }, 'HTML::Form::TextInput' ),
                               bless( {
                                        'value' => '<b>Weekly High Scorers:
                                                    Week 1  => Team 12
                                                   ',
                                        'name' => 'form::message',
                                        'class' => 'formText',
                                        'id' => 'message',
                                        'type' => 'textarea',
                                        'rows' => '10',
                                        'cols' => '60'
                                      }, 'HTML::Form::TextInput' ),
                               bless( {
                                        'readonly' => 1,
                                        'value_name' => '',
                                        'value' => '/setup',
                                        'name' => 'form::xurl',
                                        'id' => 'xurl',
                                        'type' => 'hidden'
                                      }, 'HTML::Form::TextInput' ),
                               bless( {
                                        'value_name' => '',
                                        'value' => '   OK   ',
                                        'name' => '_submit',
                                        'class' => 'formButtonLg custombutton',
                                        'type' => 'submit'
                                      }, 'HTML::Form::SubmitInput' )
                             ]
               }, 'HTML::Form' );

The value I'm trying to post is the high scorer of the week. So here is the post I'm attempting. I don't get an error, but the message doesn't change. For this example its contained in '$msg'

$mech->form_name('form::message');
print Dumper($mech->forms());
$mech->field("value", $msg);
$mech->submit();

I'm adding this section after users requested more information from me. this is the url i'm pulling, by supplying my userid and password I get the authenticated page back. At that point I then use the same 'mech' object to post a message to the league.

my $url = "http://myffleague.football.cbssports.com/setup/commish-tools/messaging/edit-league-message?xurl=/setup";
my $username = "username";
my $password = "password";
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
$mech->cookie_jar(HTTP::Cookies->new());
$mech->get($url);
$mech->form_id('login_form');
$mech->field("userid", $username);
$mech->field("password", $password);
$mech->click;

my $msg = "Weekly High Scorers:\nWeek 1  => Team 12\nWeek 2  => Team 10";
$mech->field('form::message', $msg);
$mech->submit();
print "\n\nAll Good\n\n" if ($mech->success);

And here is the requested html from the site. Its not the entire page, but the section where I need to post. I used screenshot to create the image.

Answer 1

The first parameter to the field() method is the name of the field you're setting. None of the fields in your form has the name "value". I think the name that you want is "form::message".

$mech->field('form::message', $msg);
$mech->submit();