In past columns, we’ve written code together that contacted Web sites that didn’t have an API per se and queried information from them. Tools like HTTP::Tiny, LWP::Simple, Mojo::UserAgent, and WWW::Mechanize have made an appearance in this column (some as recently as the previous column). These are all fantastic tools (some of them more fantastic than others), but if you have felt something was lacking, I can’t blame you. With all of these modules, we’ve sidestepped, for better or worse, the Web browser. This has also meant giving up certain functionality found in the browser—the biggest elephant being JavaScript. People have written code to glue JavaScript engines to WWW::Mechanize (e.g., WWW::Mechanize::PhantomJS) or to drive browsers from these kinds of modules, but they haven’t been particularly widespread in their implementation or adoption. In this column, we’re going to look at how to use Perl with a framework that lots of people use to drive browsers in a whole range of languages...
