Python Mechanize Cheat Sheet

import mechanize

br = mechanize.Browser()
br.set_all_readonly(False)    # allow everything to be written to
br.set_handle_robots(False)   # no robots
br.set_handle_refresh(False)  # can sometimes hang without this
br.addheaders = [('User-agent', 'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008071615 Fedora/3.0.1-1.fc9 Firefox/3.0.1')]
# [('User-agent', 'Firefox')]

response = br.open(url)
print response.read()      # the text of the page

response1 = br.response()  # get the response again
print response1.read()     # can apply lxml.html.fromstring()

#List the forms
for form in br.forms():
    print "Form name:", form.name
    print form

#select form
br.select_form("form1")         # works when form has a name
br.form = list(br.forms())[0]  # use when form is unnamed

#login form example
br.select_form("login")         
br['login:loginUsernameField'] = user
br['login:password'] = password
br.method = "POST"
response = br.submit()

# Iterate through the controls in the form.

for control in br.form.controls:
    print control
    print "type=%s, name=%s value=%s" % (control.type, control.name, br[control.name])

# Controls can be found by name
control = br.form.find_control("controlname")

# Having a select control tells you what values can be selected
if control.type == "select":  # means it's class ClientForm.SelectControl
    for item in control.items:
    print " name=%s values=%s" % (item.name, str([label.text  for label in item.get_labels()]))

# Because Select type controls can have multiple selections, they must be set with a list, even if it is one element.
print control.value
print control  # selected value is starred
control.value = ["ItemName"]
print control
br[control.name] = ["ItemName"]  # equivalent and more normal

# Text controls can be set as a string
if control.type == "text":  # means it's class ClientForm.TextControl
    control.value = "stuff here"
br["controlname"] = "stuff here"  # equivalent

# Controls can be set to readonly and disabled (sometimes necessary for superfluous submit buttons).
control.readonly = False
control.disabled = True

# OR disable all of them like so

for control in br.form.controls:
   if control.type == "submit":
       control.disabled = True

#Iterate the links
for link in br.links():
    print link.text, link.url
# Follow link and click links is the same as submit and click
request = br.click_link(link)
response = br.follow_link(link)
print response.geturl()

request = br.click()  # creates the request object
cj = mechanize.CookieJar()
br2 = mechanize.Browser()
br2.set_cookiejar(cj)
br2.open(request)

import mechanize
import cookielib

# Browser
br = mechanize.Browser()

# Cookie Jar
cj = cookielib.LWPCookieJar()
br.set_cookiejar(cj)

# Browser options
br.set_handle_equiv(True)
br.set_handle_gzip(True)
br.set_handle_redirect(True)
br.set_handle_referer(True)
br.set_handle_robots(False)

# Follows refresh 0 but not hangs on refresh > 0
br.set_handle_refresh(mechanize._http.HTTPRefreshProcessor(), max_time=1)

# Want debugging messages?
#br.set_debug_http(True)
#br.set_debug_redirects(True)
#br.set_debug_responses(True)

# User-Agent (this is cheating, ok?)
br.addheaders = [('User-agent', 'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008071615 Fedora/3.0.1-1.fc9 Firefox/3.0.1')]

# If the protected site didn't receive the authentication data you would
# end up with a 410 error in your face
br.add_password('http://safe-site.domain', 'username', 'password')
br.open('http://safe-site.domain')

# Download
f = br.retrieve('http://www.google.com.br/intl/pt-BR_br/images/logo.gif')[0]
print f
fh = open(f)

# Proxy and user/password
br.set_proxies({"http": "joe:password@myproxy.example.com:3128"})

# Proxy
br.set_proxies({"http": "myproxy.example.com:3128"})
# Proxy password
br.add_proxy_password("joe", "password")

import urllib2
print urllib2.urlopen('http://stockrt.github.com').read()

# With password?
import urllib
opener = urllib.FancyURLopener()
print opener.open('http://user:password@stockrt.github.com').read()