Ruby - Mechanize: Select link by classname and other questions

Question

Hello!

At the moment I'm having a look on Mechanize. I am pretty new to Ruby, so please be patient.

I wrote a little test script:

require 'rubygems'
require 'mechanize'

agent = WWW::Mechanize.new

page = agent.get('http://www.google.de')
pp page.title
google_form = page.form_with(:name => 'f')
google_form.q = 'test'
page = agent.submit(google_form)
pp page.title

page_links = Array.new
page.links.each do |ll|
  page_links << ll
end
puts page_links.size

This works. But page_links includes not only the search results. It also includes the google links like Login, Pictures, ... The result links own a styleclass "1". Is it possible to select only the links with class == 1? How do I achieve this?

Is it possible to modify the "agentalias"? If I own a website, including google analytics or something, what browserclient will I see in ga going with mechanize on my site?

Can I select elements by their ID instead of their name? I tried to use

my_form = page.form_with(:id => 'myformid')

But this does not work.

Answer 1

You can build a list of just the search result links by changing your code as follows:

page.links.each do |ll|
  cls = ll.attributes.attributes['class']
  page_links << ll if cls && cls.value == 'l'
end

For each element ll in page.links, ll.attributes is a Nokogiri::XML::Element and ll.attributes.attributes is a Hash containing the attributes on the link, hence the need for ll.attributes.attributes to get at the actual class and the need for the nil check before comparing the value to 'l'

The problem with using :id in the criteria to find a form is that it clashes with Ruby's Object#id method for returning a Ruby object's internal id. I'm not sure what the work around for this is. You would have no problem selecting the form by some other attribute (e.g. its action.)