Submit multipart/form-data using mechanize python?

Question

I'm trying to make a POST request of multipart/form-data using mechanize, here's what it looks like from firefox live http header when I actually make a post:

http://example.com/new/example

POST /new/example HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:13.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/13.0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://example.com/new/example
Cookie: tmgioct=c32MbAGn1sTuZrH8etPqVNU5; __qca=P0-495598852-1339139301054; __utma=189990958.911848588.1339139302.1339556345.1339561805.32; __utmz=189990958.1339139302.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); logged_in=1; tog_appearance_fieldset=fieldset_open; __utmc=189990958; pfu=42375294; pfp=h2YrFoaTr5LtrVys8PMmKNdyuoeA9FNLakxGzrJK; pfe=1371048319; __utmb=189990958.5.10.1339561805
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=---------------------------41184676334
Content-Length: 2947
-----------------------------41184676334
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="UPLOAD_IDENTIFIER"

0ad3af1c502c7cb59577b01720ee58ff014810c4
-----------------------------41184676334
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="post[state]"

2
-----------------------------41184676334
blahblahblahblah....

-----------------------------41184676334--

And here's my code:

browser = mechanize.Browser()

url = "http://example.com/new/example"
header = {
    'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:13.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/13.0', 
    'Referer': 'http://example.com/new/example',
    'Content-Type': 'multipart/form-data; boundary=---------------------------41184676334'
}

data = "-----------------------------41184676334\rContent-Disposition: form-data; name="UPLOAD_IDENTIFIER"\r\r0ad3af1c502c7cb59577b01720ee58ff014810c4\r-----------------------------41184676334\rContent-Disposition: form-data; name="post[state]"\r\r2\r-----------------------------41184676334\rblahblahblahblah....\r\r-----------------------------41184676334--\r"

req = urllib2.Request(url, data, header)

response = browser.open(req, timeout = 30)
response.close()

I don't know why it does NOT work. Anybody knows? Please help me out.

By the way, does it have something to do with boundary? I use random numbers in above code.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-07 11:32:16Z

1

From the MIME media types RFC 2046:

The canonical form of any MIME "text" subtype MUST always represent a line break as a CRLF sequence.

Your code uses carriage returns ('\r') only; you need to add line feeds (\n) as well.

edited Oct 7, 2021 at 11:32

CommunityBot

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answered Jun 13, 2012 at 9:48

Martijn Pieters

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5 Comments

Shane Over a year ago

I've replaced all \r with \r\n and it still does NOT work, any other possible reason?

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

Define 'not work'. The website you are trying to spoof doesn't buy it? It could be that that site is looking for more than just the User-Agent and Referer headers to determine wether or not you use a 'real browser'.

Shane Over a year ago

Yeah, I guess so. Does it have something to do with boundary number? I simply use a random generated number.

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

I doubt it. Perhaps the some of the cookies in the Cookie header are important too?

Shane Over a year ago

Tried almost everything with the header part, but still cannot find out why it's not working. Will have to use a real browser for the job.

Saintt Sheldon Patnett · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-29 07:21:22Z

0

browser.form.enctype = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"

answered May 29, 2013 at 7:21

Saintt Sheldon Patnett

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Comments

Shane · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-28 03:43:26Z

0

Ended up using requests module to do the task. It turned out to be more convenient and reliable.

You can check out this page for details: POST a Multipart-Encoded File

answered Nov 28, 2016 at 3:43

Shane

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