[Baypiggies] Adding testing to screen-scraping code

[Asheesh Laroia]

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, Charles Merriam wrote:

> Sorry, if I fail to understand.  When I don't understand, I break
> things down into small steps where
>
> 1.  You use a web hosted service which processes transcations from
> HTTP forms.  No AJAX or JavaScript.
> 2.  You have a scripts to automate this service to provide you a
> better or more programmable interface.
> 3.  You want regression tests for your scripts to ensure that the same
> page from the server will cause exactly the same output from your
> scripts.

Yes.

> This means you probably want:
> 4.  A local HTTP server that checks for an exact set of inputs, and
> then serves up a predetermined page if they match.  The page would
> also include the right URL and the like.
> 5.  A tool that makes snapshotting all those pages and linking them
> together easy.

That's right.

> I don't have a solution yet.  Is this the problem?

Yes.

I'm also interested in hearing about related tools that solve 
similar problems if no one knows of tools that solve exactly my problem.

Thanks for rephrasing the question in a concise way! (-:

-- Asheesh.

--
"It says he made us all to be just like him.  So if we're dumb, then god is
dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side."
 		-- Frank Zappa