Opening a URL with POST Parameters - batch-file

Question

I'm searching or a way to open a URL with two POST parameters. My only option now is writing a small exe which creates a form in a WebBrowser control then auto-clicks a button, which is horrible. Is there a better way I can do this?

Answer 1

You could create an HTML File with the following javascript:
<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- The function below does a post without requiring a form or the click of a button -->
function postwith (to,p) {
var myForm = document.createElement("form");
myForm.method="post" ;
myForm.action = to ;
for (var k in p) {
var myInput = document.createElement("input") ;
myInput.setAttribute("name", k) ;
myInput.setAttribute("value", p[k]);
myForm.appendChild(myInput) ;
}
document.body.appendChild(myForm) ;
myForm.submit() ;
document.body.removeChild(myForm) ;
}
</script>
Example Usage:
<script type="text/javascript">
function delconfirm(id){
if(confirm('Are you sure?'))
{
postwith('http://somesite.com/webpagetorecievepost.php',{KEY:VALUE,KEY:'STRING VALUE'});
}
}
</script>
You can have as many KEY:VALUE pairs as you like.
Once you have this html file you can modify and open it in internet explorer.

Answer 2

There are web browser automation tools that can drive IE, for instance Selenium. Selenium is scriptable, and has drivers for the major browsers. I've only used selenium for this kind of thing, driven by java code; there are alternatives.
There are also Windows GUI automation tools, for instance AutoIT, that can open a given program and manipulate GUI elements.

Answer 3

I got this working so you can open a standard .html file with a query string to forward the parameters to a URL.
function postFromQueryString(url) {
// grab params from query string into KVP array
var postParams = [], hash;
var hashes = window.location.href.slice(window.location.href.indexOf('?') + 1).split('&');
for(var i = 0; i < hashes.length; i++) {
hash = hashes[i].split('=');
postParams.push(hash[0]);
postParams[hash[0]] = hash[1];
}
if(postParams.length === 0) {
alert('No parameter was passed');
window.close();
return;
}
// create a form
var formToPost = document.createElement("form");
formToPost.method="post";
formToPost.action = url;
// add params to form
for (var k in postParams) {
var postInput = document.createElement("input");
postInput.setAttribute("name", k);
postInput.setAttribute("value", postParams[k]);
formToPost.appendChild(postInput);
}
document.body.appendChild(formToPost);
formToPost.submit();
document.body.removeChild(formToPost);
}
To call it onLoad:
(function () {
// build dynamic form and post
postFromQueryString('http://yourUrlToPostTo.aspx');
})();