Clicking a button automatically in a web browser with python

Question

Sort of like a bot, i have already checked out some sites such as pyjamas and scrapy, I know how to print data of websites, but still dont know how to interact with buttons. Can somebody help me with some demonstarative code?

Lets say i have a form

<form name="input" action="html_form_action.asp" method="get">
Username: <input type="text" name="user" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

how do i identify the button to be clicked, so that python can click it for me? If anybody knows any sites with demonstarative code, i would be very pleased.

Answer 1

You can use mechanize for that. It provides an easy way for interacting with websites.

Answer 2

If you’re looking to really simulate a browser, you might want to look at Selenium, which allows you to control a real web browser.

If the website you’re looking to interface with uses a lot of JavaScript (e.g. onclick handlers), it can be very handy.