programtically select javascript link

[rembi]

I am running a service (sourceforge.net/projects/statfink/ ) that
pulls and displays fantasy football statistics. One of the
limitations is that it only pulls stats for games that are active or
completed at the time a specific button on the server is selected.
This button calls a javascript function. I'm looking for a method to
select that button from an application started periodically through a
cron task. Any suggestions?

 

[pr]

I am running a service (sourceforge.net/projects/statfink/ ) that
pulls and displays fantasy football statistics. One of the
limitations is that it only pulls stats for games that are active or
completed at the time a specific button on the server is selected.
This button calls a javascript function. I'm looking for a method to
select that button from an application started periodically through a
cron task. Any suggestions?

Please explain again. The way I read it, you want to run a browser-based
application from a cron task. That can't be right. Where is this 'button
on the server' and who selects it?

 

[rembi]

Please explain again. The way I read it, you want to run a browser-based
application from a cron task. That can't be right. Where is this 'button
on the server' and who selects it?

Ok, let me approach this from a different angle...A visit a webpage
that provides a service to me--by service, I simply mean that it
performs an action that I am interested in. To receive that service,
all I have to do is click a button. The button click initiates a call
to some javascript which completes the service. What I would like to
do is programatically simulate the "click", or to say it differently,
initiate the action specified by the <a href=...> or onclick(...)
tags. I've seen a perl package that comes close
(WWW::Mechanize)...but it doesn't support javascript.

Does that help?

 

[pr]

Ok, let me approach this from a different angle...A visit a webpage
that provides a service to me--by service, I simply mean that it
performs an action that I am interested in. To receive that service,
all I have to do is click a button. The button click initiates a call
to some javascript which completes the service. What I would like to
do is programatically simulate the "click", or to say it differently,
initiate the action specified by the <a href=...> or onclick(...)
tags. I've seen a perl package that comes close
(WWW::Mechanize)...but it doesn't support javascript.

Does that help?

Yes, it does. I don't think you'll have any luck adapting a
browser-based javascript application for use in a cron task, but you can
mimic the browser's HTTP output very simply from a command line script.

If you don't want to, or can't use the PHP command line interface to
send/receive HTTP, then think about Wget
(http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/). It's primarily a download utility,
but it can send different headers, including POST (for forms), and save
any results to file. You can automate it using a standard shell script.

HTTP itself isn't very hard to understand; an Ajax tutorial might tell
you as much as you need to know. A quick way to find out what the
browser is saying to the server is to use a traffic analyser like
Wireshark (http://www.wireshark.org/), or Firefox's 'Live HTTP Headers'
extension (http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/).