Autodetect Proxy on Windows

[Takamoto]

Hello

I need to run scripts through a proxy on Windows machines. I usually do this:

use strict;
use warnings;

use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request;

print "Connecting...\n";
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new( );
$ua->proxy(['http', 'https'], 'http://127.0.0.1:8888/');

my $url="https://www.google.com";
my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => $url);
my $response = $ua->request($req);

    if ($response->is_success) {
        print "OK CONNECTION!\n";
    }
    else{
        print "NO CONNECTION!\n";
    }

This works fine. However, I would like to autodetect the proxy. The only thing I found so far is LWP::UserAgent::ProxyAny;. Changing the script to:

use strict;
use warnings;

use LWP::UserAgent::ProxyAny;
use HTTP::Request;

print "Connecting...\n";
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent::ProxyAny->new;
$ua->env_proxy;

my $url="https://www.google.com";
my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => $url);
my $response = $ua->request($req);

    if ($response->is_success) {
        print "OK CONNECTION!\n";
    }
    else{
        print "NO CONNECTION!\n";
    }

I go through the proxy. If I look inside $ua I found my proxy. HOWEVER, the module is 15 years old, and normally I have lots of doubts in using modules that never get updated. So, before using it in production I would like to have some feedbacks from people using it and know possible problems I could face (and of course I am interested in alternatives, if any). Thank you.

[roboticus]

Takamoto:

I understand why you might be worried: the module hasn't changed in a long time, the author hasn't updated any of their modules in a long time, and the package has little in the way of test coverage.

In this case, though, I wouldn't worry about it: The module itself is just 80 lines of code that just verifies that it's running on windows, and if so, it looks in the registry for the proxy information. A quick google seems to indicate that looking in the registry is a common way to get proxy information, so I'd expect it to be a reasonable way to get the proxy information for the foreseeable future.

...roboticus

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

[stevieb]

I also had a read through the distribution, and I agree with roboticus; it appears like it's fine to use.

Very little complexity, so really nothing has had to be updated.

There are no test failures, but with that said, there's only a few tests being run. Again though, the module is pretty simplistic in what it does.

[Anonymous Monk]

I find the approach of LWP::UserAgent::ProxyAny; quite interesting. Is there something similar for macOS?!?