http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=929634


in reply to Re: What Tools Do You Use With WWW::Mechanize
in thread What Tools Do You Use With WWW::Mechanize

Greetings, esteemed monks!

To reply to my own concern, I came up with this for generating wait times between link clicking/back() calls in a Mech script. What do you think?

#!/usr/bin/perl -- use strict; use warnings; my $i1 = int(rand(5)+1); my $i2 = int(rand(2)); my $i = 0; while ($i<10){ print "$i1: $i2\n"; my $interval = $i1 + ($i2*$i1); print "waiting for $interval seconds...\n"; sleep($interval); $i1 = int(rand(5)+1); $i2 = int(rand(2)); $i++; }
Sample output:
1: 0 waiting for 1 seconds... 4: 0 waiting for 4 seconds... 1: 1 waiting for 2 seconds... 4: 1 waiting for 8 seconds... 4: 0 waiting for 4 seconds... 4: 1 waiting for 8 seconds... 4: 0 waiting for 4 seconds... 5: 0 waiting for 5 seconds... 1: 1 waiting for 2 seconds... 1: 1 waiting for 2 seconds...

I like computer programming because it's like Legos for the mind.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^3: What Tools Do You Use With WWW::Mechanize
by Limbic~Region (Chancellor) on Oct 04, 2011 at 18:43 UTC
    OfficeLinebacker,
    Have you seen WWW::Mechanize::Sleepy? Personally, I use something along the lines of:
    # Sleep a random interval between $duration and 2 * $duration - 1 unit sub rest { my ($duration) = @_; sleep $duration; sleep rand($duration); } sub fetch_page { my ($mech, $action, $target, $max, $duration) = @_; for (1 .. $max) { rest($duration); eval {$mech->$action($target);}; return if ! $@ && $mech->status == OK; } die "Failed to fetch '$url' after '$max' attempts\n"; }

    Of course, if you want to allow for HTTP redirects then you will need to change status == OK to include acceptable HTTP codes. Additionally, if you use Time::HiRes to overload sleep, you can easily sleep for partial minutes. In truth, I typically use milliseconds.

    Cheers - L~R

      I hadn't even heard of WWW::Mechanize::Sleepy! That's great. During debugging I get impatient but once the product is rolled out it only has to run once a day or so, so using seconds is fine. Also I think you mean "you can easily sleep for partial seconds," right?

      I like computer programming because it's like Legos for the mind.