Logging into Stack Overflow with Mechanize and Python

Question

I have been using this guide to help me: http://www.pythonforbeginners.com/cheatsheet/python-mechanize-cheat-sheet/

I want to log into Stack Overflow and print out my login response using Mechanize in Python. I have been troubleshooting to find a form name to select and enter my information into, but am currently getting an error "ValueError: at least one argument must be supplied to specify control" because I am trying to print out all forms and controls to help me figure out what I need to choose from.

   import mechanize

   #make browser object
   browser = mechanize.Browser()

  #open stack login page
  browser.open("http://stackoverflow.com/users/login#login-in")

  #print all the forms on the page
  print("\n Printing all forms on page...\n")
  for form in browser.forms():
          print("Form Name:", form.name)
          print form
  print("\n Done printing forms...\n")

  #printing the controls of each form

  browser.form=list(browser.forms())[0]

  print("\n Printing controls of form 0 \n")
  for control in browser.form.controls:
          print control
          print "type=%s, name=%s, value=%s" % (control.type, control.name, browser[control.name])

  browser.form=list(browser.forms())[1]

  print("\n Printing controls of form 1 \n")
  for control in browser.form.controls:
          print control
          print "type=%s, name=%s, value=%s" % (control.type, control.name, browser[control.name])

  browser.form=list(browser.forms())[2]

  print("\n Printing controls of form 2 \n")
 for control in browser.form.controls:
          print control
          print "type=%s, name=%s, value=%s" % (control.type, control.name, browser[control.name])

 print("\n Done printing all controls \n")

It looks like there are 3 forms on the page, but they do not contain the email and password inputs I am looking for to login. What am I doing wrong?

ChrisP · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-22 15:31:07Z

1

Login forms for SO appear to use extensive JavaScript. Note that all of the buttons related to login on the page you posted call JavaScript functions. mechanize can not execute JavaScript and therefore won't show the content you need.

You could drive a browser using Selenium with Python bindings. You could also switch to doing everything in JavaScript using CasperJS.

answered Dec 22, 2013 at 15:31

ChrisP

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1 Comment

Jordan.J.D Over a year ago

Thanks, I think I got it to work with Selenium, just have to do some editing!

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