How can I send a URL request to the server with Python without actually opening my browser ("without using the webbrowser module")?

Question

I want to send this URL as a request to the server to change something on the website while I am logged in. The problem is, when I use mechanize or urllib2 to open the URL it doesn't change anything on the website. However, when I use the webbrowser module, it does change things on the website. I want to do what the webbrowser module does, but WITHOUT opening the actual browser. Is there a way to do this? And why are mechanize and urllib2 not working?

EDIT: What I mean by "changes to the website" is that I get these things called "Shares" and "Tickets" for information that I put on the website. My program finds accurate information (they will kick you out if its fake) and using a URL, "inserts" it into the website.

Example URL (all my others follow this format):

http://www.locationary.com/access/proxy.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=proxy_jsp$JspView$SaveAction&inPlaceID=1020634218&xxx_c_1_f_987=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yellowpages.com%2Fpittsburgh-pa%2Fmip%2Ffamily-dollar-store-1349194%3Flid%3D1349194

mechanize code:

import mechanize
br = mechanize.Browser()
url = http://www.locationary.com/access/proxy.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=proxy_jsp$JspView$SaveAction&inPlaceID=1020634218&xxx_c_1_f_987=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yellowpages.com%2Fpittsburgh-pa%2Fmip%2Ffamily-dollar-store-1349194%3Flid%3D1349194
br.open(url)

urllib2 code:

from urllib2 import urlopen
url = http://www.locationary.com/access/proxy.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=proxy_jsp$JspView$SaveAction&inPlaceID=1020634218&xxx_c_1_f_987=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yellowpages.com%2Fpittsburgh-pa%2Fmip%2Ffamily-dollar-store-1349194%3Flid%3D1349194
page = urllib2.urlopen(url)
page.read()

webbrowser code:

import webbrowser
url = http://www.locationary.com/access/proxy.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=proxy_jsp$JspView$SaveAction&inPlaceID=1020634218&xxx_c_1_f_987=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yellowpages.com%2Fpittsburgh-pa%2Fmip%2Ffamily-dollar-store-1349194%3Flid%3D1349194
webbrowser.open(url)

EDIT #2 I tried this code just now:

import urllib2
import urllib

def log_in():
    url = 'https://www.locationary.com/index.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=tile_loginBar_jsp$JspView$LoginAction'
    values = {'inUserName' : '[email protected]',
              'inUserPass' : 'myPass'}
    data = urllib.urlencode(values)
    req = urllib2.Request(url, data)
    req.add_header('Host', 'www.locationary.com')
    req.add_header('User-Agent', 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:8.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/8.0')
    req.add_header('Accept', 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8')
    req.add_header('Accept-Language', 'en-us,en;q=0.5')
    req.add_header('Accept-Encoding','gzip, deflate')
    req.add_header('Accept-Charset','ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7')
    req.add_header('Connection','keep-alive')
    req.add_header('Referer','http://www.locationary.com/')
    req.add_header('Cookie','site_version=REGULAR; __utma=47547066.1079503560.1321924193.1322707232.1324693472.36; __utmz=47547066.1321924193.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); nickname=jacob501; locaCountry=1033; locaState=1795; locaCity=Montreal; jforumUserId=1; PMS=1; TurnOFfTips=true; Locacookie=enable; __utma=47547066.1079503560.1321924193.1322707232.1324693472.36; __utmz=47547066.1321924193.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); nickname=jacob501; PMS=1; __utmb=47547066.15.10.1324693472; __utmc=47547066; JSESSIONID=DC7F5AB08264A51FBCDB836393CB16E7; PSESSIONID=28b334905ab6305f7a7fe051e83857bc280af1a9; __utmc=47547066; __utmb=47547066.15.10.1324693472; ACTION_RESULT_CODE=ACTION_RESULT_FAIL; ACTION_ERROR_TEXT=java.lang.NullPointerException')
    req.add_header('Content-Type','application/x-www-form-urlencoded')
    response = urllib2.urlopen(req)
    page = response.read()

url2 = 'http://www.locationary.com/access/proxy.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=proxy_jsp$JspView$SaveAction&inPlaceID=1020634218&xxx_c_1_f_987=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yellowpages.com%2Fpittsburgh-pa%2Fmip%2Ffamily-dollar-store-1349194%3Flid%3D1349194'

log_in()
response2 = urllib2.urlopen(url2)
page2 = response2.read()

but it didn't work.

EDIT 3: Code from tony that didn't work for me.

import urllib2
import urllib
import cookielib

data = urllib.urlencode({"inUserName":"MYUSERNAMESHOULDBEHERE", "inUserPass":"MYPASSWORDSHOULDBEHERE"})
jar = cookielib.FileCookieJar("cookies")
opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(jar))
request = urllib2.Request("https://www.locationary.com/index.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=tile_loginBar_jsp$JspView$LoginAction", data)
opener.open(request) 
url = "http://www.locationary.com/access/proxy.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=proxy_jsp$JspView$SaveAction&inPlaceID=1012432546&xxx_c_1_f_987=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yellowpages.com%2Fpittsburgh-pa%2Fmip%2Fdennys-13470813%3Flid%3D13470813"
anything = opener.open(url)
anything.read()

FINAL EDIT! I finally got it to work using Tony's suggestions!

This is my final code that worked:

import urllib2
import urllib
import cookielib

data = urllib.urlencode({"inUserName":"[email protected]", "inUserPass":"mypassword"})
jar = cookielib.FileCookieJar("cookies")
opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(jar))
opener.addheaders.append(('User-agent', 'Mozilla/4.0'))
opener.addheaders.append( ('Referer', 'http://www.hellboundhackers.org/index.php') )
opener.addheaders.append(('Cookie','site_version=REGULAR; __utma=47547066.912030359.1322003402.1324688192.1324930160.55; __utmz=47547066.1324655802.52.13.utmcsr=google|utmccn=(organic)|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=cache:dr23PN5fUj4J:www.locationary.com/%20locationary; nickname=jacob501; jforumUserId=1; PMS=1; locaCountry=1033; locaState=1786; locaCity=Vancouver; JSESSIONID=A8F241E1924CE7A25FAA8C5CA6597697; PSESSIONID=5c21c44245f978b917f17982c944a9ec2b5d2df5; Locacookie=enable; __utmb=47547066.5.10.1324930160; __utmc=47547066'))
request = urllib2.Request("https://www.locationary.com/index.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=tile_loginBar_jsp$JspView$LoginAction", data)
response = opener.open(request) 
url = "http://www.locationary.com/"
anything = opener.open(url)
anything.read()

All I had to do was add the line

opener.addheaders.append(('Cookie','site_version=REGULAR; __utma=47547066.912030359.1322003402.1324688192.1324930160.55; __utmz=

etc. etc. (the really long line of code, the cookie)

I also added a "Referer" and "User-Agent" header just in case.

Thanks tony!!

Could you check the HTTP status of the response? Or if the browser is following a redirect? — Marco Mariani
– Marco Mariani, Commented Dec 26, 2011 at 18:57

tony · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-26 19:19:13Z

1

First you should write url variable with quotes:

url = "http://www.locationary.com/access/proxy.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=proxy_jsp$JspView$SaveAction&inPlaceID=1020634218&xxx_c_1_f_987=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yellowpages.com%2Fpittsburgh-pa%2Fmip%2Ffamily-dollar-store-1349194%3Flid%3D1349194"

And if you wanna send request without opening browser you might use urllib, like you do.

If you need authentication (seems like you do) you should send request for authentication, get cookies (use for it cookielib.FileCookieJar) and set them in opener. Then you will be able to open pages and send requests.

Approximately you need something like:

data=urllib.urlencode({"login":"your login or whatever, "pass":"password}) # be aware you need to change "login" and "pass" to names of fields in form you have.
jar = cookielib.FileCookieJar("cookies")
opener = urllib2.build_opener(urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(jar))
request = urllib2.Request("url for authentication", data)
opener.open(request) # now you should be authorized and able to send any request like logged in user, using opener

url = "http://www.locationary.com/access/proxy.jsp?ACTION_TOKEN=proxy_jsp$JspView$SaveAction&inPlaceID=1020634218&xxx_c_1_f_987=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yellowpages.com%2Fpittsburgh-pa%2Fmip%2Ffamily-dollar-store-1349194%3Flid%3D1349194"
anything = opener.open(url)
anything.read()

answered Dec 26, 2011 at 19:19

tony

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4 Comments

John McFarley Over a year ago

I think this is a good answer and to me, logically, it should work. But it didn't. See Edit 3 above.

tony Over a year ago

@John McFarley get response after try authorization and read it: resplonse = opener.open(request) response.read() probably you'll see some errors during it.

John McFarley Over a year ago

For some reason when I do "print response.read()" I get the HTML of the Mobile Login site. Part of the HTML says "<title>Locationary Mobile - Login</title>" Do you know why this could be happening?

tony Over a year ago

@John McFarley actually it's not clear for me, but i suggest you try to get cookies which you receive after authentication from browser, read them (it should be a file) and "insert" in your opener. i'm not sure right now how to implement it, try to read here

joel goldstick · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-26 18:56:47Z

0

{"manifest":{"errorTimeout":0,"succeed":true,"errorCode":0,"serverVersion":"1.0","type":"locaaccess"},"saveResult":{"message":"You don't have permissions!","placeOpenedState":0,"isSucess":false}}

I get that from putting your urllib in my browser. You need to first authenticate yourself to the website I believe, then perform this command. I can't give you instructions for how to log on to the site, but if you go to the log in page it may have a form that you can mimic with a url post via urllib2

answered Dec 26, 2011 at 18:56

joel goldstick

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2 Comments

John McFarley Over a year ago

I'll try that. Be back in a second.

John McFarley Over a year ago

Hmmm...see my second Edit above. It didn't work for me but I may have gotten it wrong.

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