How to fill in multiple webforms from a list

November 21, 2007 10:02 PM

I am looking for some automated method of using a txt list of names to submit into a single value web form that in turn returns a web page with data that I am interested in. I have no programming skills, so kind of looking for some sort of idiot proof answer. Any ideas?
posted by dripped to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

I think we'll need more details.
posted by jragon at 10:12 PM on November 21, 2007

Is it possible for you to be more concrete in what you want to do? Telling us what form it is could help.
posted by demiurge at 10:13 PM on November 21, 2007

Pulling it back a smidge: are you looking to take a list of names and get a web page with aggregate data?

Since you said you're a non-programmer, try to refrain from thinking thinking about the hows. Give us a sample of what you are using for input and expect for output. You'll skip the ??? part and immedately go to Profit! Sorry about the inside web joke.
posted by pedantic at 10:23 PM on November 21, 2007

I should also say what I mean by "hows" are: the txt file and form submission. There are a million ways to do what you ask. It's a matter of knowing what you have and waht you intend to find.
posted by pedantic at 10:25 PM on November 21, 2007

Response by poster: Sorry for being vague.

I am trying to build a list from the data from this website:

I have a list of 1000 locations that I would like to submit into this form. The data returned, ideally would go into a .csv file, but I can also pull it from the regular webpage and copy/paste into excel manually.
posted by dripped at 10:27 PM on November 21, 2007

wget and a loop through the names in the list. use wget's POST form data features to specify the location name.
posted by rhizome at 11:27 PM on November 21, 2007

You maybe could do this with curl.
posted by seanyboy at 12:25 AM on November 22, 2007