Filling out calendar with Mechanize?

Question

I want to fill out the calendar date field for www.vegas.com/lasvegastraveldeals.

So far I can't seem to get the value method to work. Here is my code:

require 'mechanize'

agent = Mechanize.new
page = agent.get('http://www.vegas.com/lasvegastraveldeals/')
vegas_form = page.form('gs')
vegas_form.q = 'DFW'
departure = vegas_form.field_with(:id => 'departureDatec12')
departure.value = "05/16/2014"
pp page

I get this error:

vegas_scraper.rb:9:in `<main>': undefined method `value=' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

Any suggestions?

That id is being populated at runtime using JS. Thus mechanize not able to find it I think. — Arup Rakshit, Feb 25 '14 at 21:12

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 26 '14 at 07:21

1

If the field name is departureDate then this should work:

form['departureDate'] = '05/16/2014'

edited Feb 26 '14 at 07:21

the Tin Man

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answered Feb 25 '14 at 23:27

pguardiario

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 25 '14 at 21:19

0

You are not finding the input with id departureDatec12. According to the source code of the page it is departureDate2. So try with this

departure = vegas_form.field_with(:id => 'departureDate2')

answered Feb 25 '14 at 21:19

Rafa Paez

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I tried it.. still not working. Did you run the code with your change ? – Arup Rakshit Feb 25 '14 at 21:21
If you do page view source, you wouldn't find the *id* – Arup Rakshit Feb 25 '14 at 21:23
Why not? I can see the departure input. `input type="text" autocomplete="off" value="02/25/2014" name="departureDate" id="departureDate2" ...` – Rafa Paez Feb 25 '14 at 21:28
Doing *view page source* or using *inspect element* ? – Arup Rakshit Feb 25 '14 at 21:36
Inspect element with Developer Tools. – Rafa Paez Feb 25 '14 at 21:37
Humm.. Try with page source, what `Mechanize` also seeing. :-) – Arup Rakshit Feb 25 '14 at 21:39
Mechanize it is a bit old, isn't? As you said, the OP should use watir/selenium. Thanks! – Rafa Paez Feb 25 '14 at 21:42
So watir handles javascript? It looks alot similar to mechanize. – Seal Feb 25 '14 at 22:00
@Rafa, it doesn't matter whether Mechanize is old, it matters whether it's the appropriate tool for the job. If anything, its age infers it's well tested and used for a lot of applications. – the Tin Man Feb 26 '14 at 07:23
Watir controls browsers, and the browsers handle JavaScript. – the Tin Man Feb 26 '14 at 07:23

Filling out calendar with Mechanize?

2 Answers2