issue in perl script that sends sms using a third party website

[ramyavictor89]

I found a perl script that sends sms using a third party free website. It was working fine until today. Today i noticed that the "div tag id" used to get the access of the textbox to enter the sender's phone number is changed from static to dynamic, ie, the id is dynamically generated so i can no longer use the static id. I am using the WWW::Mechanize to access the forms,so can ou tell me how do i obtain a variable value that is dynamically generated in a webpage and use in my perl script. Here is the complete sample code that i am using:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use WWW::Mechanize;
use Compress::Zlib;

my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();

my $username = ""; #fill in username registered here
my $keyword = "";  #fill in password here
my $opt="-f";
my ($text,$mobile,$option);
my @mobilenos;
my $morenos = $ARGV[0];
@mobilenos = $morenos;
$text = $ARGV[1];
$deb = 1;

print "Total Character of message is ".length($text)."\n" if($deb);

$text = $text."\n\n\n\n\n" if(length($text) < 135);

$mech->get("http://wwwl.way2sms.com/content/index.html");
unless($mech->success())
{
exit;
}
$dest = $mech->response->content;

print "Fetching...\n" if($deb);

if($mech->response->header("Content-Encoding") eq "gzip")
{
$dest = Compress::Zlib::memGunzip($dest);
$mech->update_html($dest);
}

$dest =~ s/<form name="loginForm"/<form action='..\/Login1.action' nam
+e="loginForm"/ig;

$mech->update_html($dest);
$mech->form_with_fields(("username","password"));
$mech->field("username",$username);

print "Loggin...\n" if($deb);

$mech->submit_form();

$dest= $mech->response->content;

if($mech->response->header("Content-Encoding") eq "gzip")
{
$dest = Compress::Zlib::memGunzip($dest);
$mech->update_html($dest);
}

foreach $mobile (@mobilenos){
# for loop begins
chomp($mobile);
print "\nMessage sending to ".($mobile)."\n";

$mech->get("http://wwwl.way2sms.com//jsp/InstantSMS.jsp?val=0");
$dest= $mech->response->content;
if($mech->response->header("Content-Encoding") eq "gzip")
{
$dest = Compress::Zlib::memGunzip($dest);
$mech->update_html($dest);
}

print "Sending ... \n" if($deb);

####I AM UNABLE TO GET THE FORM WITH FIELD MobNo AS ITS rqMob WHOSE VA
+LUE IS DYNAMICALLY GENERATED#####
$mech->form_with_fields(("MobNo","textArea"));
$mech->field("MobNo",$mobile);
$mech->field("textArea",$text);
$mech->submit_form();
 if($mech->success())
{
print "Done \n" if($deb);
}
else
{
print "Failed \n" if($deb);
exit;
}

$dest =  $mech->response->content;
if($mech->response->header("Content-Encoding") eq "gzip")
{
$dest = Compress::Zlib::memGunzip($dest);
#print $dest if($deb);
}

if($dest =~ m/successfully/sig)
{
print "Message sent successfully \n" if($deb);
}

# foreach loop ends
}

print "Message sent to all the numbers\n Bye.\n";
exit;
#EOF

To run the script i type: ./sms.pl phone_number_of_reciever 'message_to_be_sent' . PLEASE HELP ME WITH THIS PROBLEM AS THIS IS A IMPORTANT PART OF MY PROJECT. THANKS IN ADVANCE..

[Corion]

Have a look at WWW::Mechanize->forms, which will list all the available forms. From that, you can find the form with the fields you want to use. Maybe it is already enough to find the form that contains a field with the name textArea.

It seems that way2sms also offers a better API where you can upload XML via FTP or HTTP instead of automating their website. Maybe you want to use that instead?

[roboticus]

ramyavictor89:

While it may be IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR PROJECT, it clearly violates the terms of use of the site. They make their money by selling advertisements on their site, which your users won't see. I'd suggest you instead look for the SMS gateways for the various phone networks you're trying to send messages to.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.

[Anonymous Monk]

It's not a free website, you're breaking their terms of use and bypassing how they earn money to provide this service. In time this will make running the service unprofitable, and it'll shutdown. Your project is basically wrong if you're stupid enough to rely on automating someone elses service by making it difficult for them to support the service YOU depend on!

[ramyavictor89]

My project is just a prototype and i am not coverting it to a product or use it forever. Thanks for our suggestion