1CGI::Ex::Fill(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation CGI::Ex::Fill(3)
2
6 CGI::Ex::Fill - Fast but compliant regex based form filler
7
9 version 2.54
10
12 use CGI::Ex::Fill qw(form_fill fill);
13 my $text = my_own_template_from_somewhere();
15 my $form = CGI->new;
17 # OR
18 # my $form = {key => 'value'}
19 # OR
20 # my $form = [CGI->new, CGI->new, {key1 => 'val1'}, CGI->new];
21 form_fill(\$text, $form); # modifies $text
24 # OR
26 # my $copy = form_fill($text, $form); # copies $text
27 # OR
29 fill({
30 text => \$text,
31 form => $form,
32 });
33 # ALSO
36 my $formname = 'formname'; # form to parse (undef = anytable)
38 my $fp = 0; # fill_passwords ? default is true
39 my $ignore = ['key1', 'key2']; # OR {key1 => 1, key2 => 1};
40 form_fill(\$text, $form, $formname, $fp, $ignore);
42 # OR
44 fill({
45 text => \$text,
46 form => $form,
47 target => 'my_formname',
48 fill_password => $fp,
49 ignore_fields => $ignore,
50 });
51 # ALSO
53 ### delay getting the value until we find an element that needs it
55 my $form = {key => sub {my $key = shift; # get and return value}};
56
58 form_fill is directly comparable to HTML::FillInForm. It will pass the
59 same suite of tests (actually - it is a little bit kinder on the parse
60 as it won't change case, reorder your attributes, or alter
61 miscellaneous spaces and it won't require the HTML to be well formed).
62 HTML::FillInForm is based upon HTML::Parser while CGI::Ex::Fill is
64 purely regex driven. The performance of CGI::Ex::Fill will be better
65 on HTML with many markup tags because HTML::Parser will parse each tag
66 while CGI::Ex::Fill will search only for those tags it knows how to
67 handle. And CGI::Ex::Fill generally won't break on malformed html.
68 On tiny forms (< 1 k) form_fill was ~ 13% slower than FillInForm. If
70 the html document incorporated very many entities at all, the
71 performance of FillInForm goes down (adding 360 <br> tags pushed
72 form_fill to ~ 350% faster). However, if you are only filling in one
73 form every so often, then it shouldn't matter which you use - but
74 form_fill will be nicer on the tags and won't balk at ugly html and
75 will decrease performance only at a slow rate as the size of the html
76 increases. See the benchmarks in the t/samples/bench_cgix_hfif.pl file
77 for more information (ALL BENCHMARKS SHOULD BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF
78 SALT).
79 There are two functions, fill and form_fill. The function fill takes a
81 hashref of named arguments. The function form_fill takes a list of
82 positional parameters.
83
85 The following are the arguments to the main function "fill".
86 text
88 A reference to an html string that includes one or more forms.
89 form
91 A form hash, CGI object, or an array of hashrefs and objects.
92 target
94 The name of the form to swap. Default is undef which means to swap
95 all form entities in all forms.
96 fill_password
98 Default true. If set to false, fields of type password will not be
99 refilled.
100 ignore_fields
102 Hashref of fields to be ignored from swapping.
103 remove_script
105 Defaults to the package global $REMOVE_SCRIPT which defaults to
106 true. Removes anything in <script></script> tags which often cause
107 problems for parsers.
108 remove_comment
110 Defaults to the package global $REMOVE_COMMENT which defaults to
111 true. Removes anything in <!-- --> tags which can sometimes cause
112 problems for parsers.
113 object_method
115 The method to call on objects passed to the form argument. Default
116 value is the package global $OBJECT_METHOD which defaults to
117 'param'. If a CGI object is passed, it would call param on that
118 object passing the desired keyname as an argument.
119
121 The following are the arguments to the legacy function "form_fill".
122 "\$html"
124 A reference to an html string that includes one or more forms or
125 form entities.
126 "\%FORM"
128 A form hash, or CGI query object, or an arrayref of multiple hash
129 refs and/or CGI query objects that will supply values for the form.
130 $form_name
132 The name of the form to fill in values for. The default is undef
133 which indicates that all forms are to be filled in.
134 $swap_pass
136 Default true. Indicates that "<lt"input type="password"<gt>>
137 fields are to be swapped as well. Set to false to disable this
138 behavior.
139 "\%IGNORE_FIELDS" OR "\@IGNORE_FIELDS"
141 A hash ref of key names or an array ref of key names that will be
142 ignored during the fill in of the form.
143
145 fill and form_fill will attempt to DWYM when filling in values. The
146 following behaviors are used on the following types of form elements.
147 "<input type="text">"
149 The following rules are used when matching this type:
150 1) Get the value from the form that matches the input's "name".
152 2) If the value is defined - it adds or replaces the existing value.
153 3) If the value is not defined and the existing value is not defined,
154 a value of "" is added.
155 For example:
157 my $form = {foo => "FOO", bar => "BAR", baz => "BAZ"};
159 my $html = '
161 <input type=text name=foo>
162 <input type=text name=foo>
163 <input type=text name=bar value="">
164 <input type=text name=baz value="Something else">
165 <input type=text name=hem value="Another thing">
166 <input type=text name=haw>
167 ';
168 form_fill(\$html, $form);
170 $html eq '
172 <input type=text name=foo value="FOO">
173 <input type=text name=foo value="FOO">
174 <input type=text name=bar value="BAR">
175 <input type=text name=baz value="BAZ">
176 <input type=text name=hem value="Another thing">
177 <input type=text name=haw value="">
178 ';
179 If the value returned from the form is an array ref, the values of
181 the array ref will be sequentially used for each input found by
182 that name until the values run out. If the value is not an array
183 ref - it will be used to fill in any values by that name. For
184 example:
185 $form = {foo => ['aaaa', 'bbbb', 'cccc']};
187 $html = '
189 <input type=text name=foo>
190 <input type=text name=foo>
191 <input type=text name=foo>
192 <input type=text name=foo>
193 <input type=text name=foo>
194 ';
195 form_fill(\$html, $form);
197 $html eq '
199 <input type=text name=foo value="aaaa">
200 <input type=text name=foo value="bbbb">
201 <input type=text name=foo value="cccc">
202 <input type=text name=foo value="">
203 <input type=text name=foo value="">
204 ';
205 "<input type="hidden">"
207 Same as "<input type="text">".
208 "<input type="password">"
210 Same as "<input type="text">".
211 "<input type="file">"
213 Same as "<input type="text">". (Note - this is subject to browser
214 support for pre-population)
215 "<input type="checkbox">"
217 As each checkbox is found the following rules are applied:
218 1) Get the values from the form (do nothing if no values found)
220 2) Remove any existing "checked=checked" or "checked" markup from the tag.
221 3) Compare the "value" field to the values and mark with checked="checked"
222 if there is a match.
223 If no "value" field is found in the html, a default value of "on"
225 will be used (which is what most browsers will send as the default
226 value for checked boxes without "value" fields).
227 $form = {foo => 'FOO', bar => ['aaaa', 'bbbb', 'cccc'], baz => 'on'};
229 $html = '
231 <input type=checkbox name=foo value="123">
232 <input type=checkbox name=foo value="FOO">
233 <input type=checkbox name=bar value="aaaa">
234 <input type=checkbox name=bar value="cccc">
235 <input type=checkbox name=bar value="dddd" checked="checked">
236 <input type=checkbox name=baz>
237 ';
238 form_fill(\$html, $form);
240 $html eq '
242 <input type=checkbox name=foo value="123">
243 <input type=checkbox name=foo value="FOO" checked="checked">
244 <input type=checkbox name=bar value="aaaa" checked="checked">
245 <input type=checkbox name=bar value="cccc" checked="checked">
246 <input type=checkbox name=bar value="dddd">
247 <input type=checkbox name=baz checked="checked">
248 ';
249 "<input type="radio">"
251 Same as "<input type="checkbox">".
252 "<select>"
254 As each select box is found the following rules are applied (these
255 rules are applied regardless of if the box is a select-one or a
256 select-multi - if multiple values are selected on a select-one it
257 is up to the browser to choose which one to highlight):
258 1) Get the values from the form (do nothing if no values found)
260 2) Remove any existing "selected=selected" or "selected" markup from the tag.
261 3) Compare the "value" field to the values and mark with selected="selected"
262 if there is a match.
263 4) If there is no "value" field - use the text in between the "option" tags.
264 (Note: There does not need to be a closing "select" tag or closing "option" tag)
266 $form = {foo => 'FOO', bar => ['aaaa', 'bbbb', 'cccc']};
269 $html = '
271 <select name=foo><option>FOO<option>123<br>
272 <select name=bar>
274 <option>aaaa</option>
275 <option value="cccc">cccc</option>
276 <option value="dddd" selected="selected">dddd</option>
277 </select>
278 ';
279 form_fill(\$html, $form);
281 ok(
283 $html eq '
284 <select name=foo><option selected="selected">FOO<option>123<br>
285 <select name=bar>
287 <option selected="selected">aaaa</option>
288 <option value="cccc" selected="selected">cccc</option>
289 <option value="dddd">dddd</option>
290 </select>
291 ', "Perldoc example 4 passed");
292 "<textarea>"
294 The rules for swapping textarea are as follows:
295 1) Get the value from the form that matches the textarea's "name".
297 2) If the value is defined - it adds or replaces the existing value.
298 3) If the value is not defined, the text area is left alone.
299 (Note - there does not need to be a closing textarea tag. In the case of
301 a missing close textarea tag, the contents of the text area will be
302 assumed to be the start of the next textarea of the end of the document -
303 which ever comes sooner)
304 If the form returned an array ref of values, then these values will
306 be used sequentially each time a textarea by that name is found.
307 If a single value (not array ref) is found, that value will be used
308 for each textarea by that name.
309 For example.
311 $form = {foo => 'FOO', bar => ['aaaa', 'bbbb']};
313 $html = '
315 <textarea name=foo></textarea>
316 <textarea name=foo></textarea>
317 <textarea name=bar>
319 <textarea name=bar></textarea><br>
320 <textarea name=bar>dddd</textarea><br>
321 <textarea name=bar><br><br>
322 ';
323 form_fill(\$html, $form);
325 $html eq '
327 <textarea name=foo>FOO</textarea>
328 <textarea name=foo>FOO</textarea>
329 <textarea name=bar>aaaa<textarea name=bar>bbbb</textarea><br>
331 <textarea name=bar></textarea><br>
332 <textarea name=bar>';
333 "<input type="submit">"
335 Does nothing. The value for submit should typically be set by the
336 templating system or application system.
337 "<input type="button">"
339 Same as submit.
340
342 Because there are too many problems that could occur with html comments
343 and javascript, form_fill temporarily removes them during the fill.
344 You may disable this behavior by setting $REMOVE_COMMENT and
345 $REMOVE_SCRIPT to 0 before calling form_fill. The main reason for
346 doing this would be if you wanted to have form elements inside the
347 javascript and comments get filled. Disabling the removal only results
348 in a speed increase of 5%. The function uses \0COMMENT\0 and \0SCRIPT\0
349 as placeholders so it would be good to avoid these in your text
350 (Actually they may be reset to whatever you'd like via $MARKER_COMMENT
351 and $MARKER_SCRIPT).
352
354 "html_escape"
355 Very minimal entity escaper for filled in values.
356 my $escaped = html_escape($unescaped);
358 html_escape(\$text_to_escape);
360 "get_tagval_by_key"
362 Get a named value for from an html tag (key="value" pairs).
363 my $val = get_tagval_by_key(\$tag, $key);
365 my $valsref = get_tagval_by_key(\$tag, $key, 'all'); # get all values
366 "swap_tagval_by_key"
368 Swap out values in an html tag (key="value" pairs).
369 my $count = swap_tagval_by_key(\$tag, $key, $val); # modify ref
371 my $newtag = swap_tagval_by_key($tag, $key, $val); # copies tag
372
374 This module may distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.
375
377 Paul Seamons <perl at seamons dot com>
378perl v5.36.0 2022-07-22 CGI::Ex::Fill(3)