Re: lynx-dev -post_data

[Klaus Weide]

On Tue, 19 Oct 1999, Matt Staley wrote:

> Ah....When you brought up the issue with javascript in onSubmit, I tested
> the netscape by turning off the javascript. I got exactly the same error
> that lynx spit out.  
> 
> Ok...for my future reference, I have two questions.  One, how do I get
> stuff from archives regarding to post_data?  

    http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/

The main Lynx Help Page (which you normally get with the '?' key)
should give you an "About Lynx-Dev" link, where you find a link
to the archives.

> two, about URL, you're right
> that I am sending those data to the wrong url. I have to go to
> http://www.somewebsite.com/lookup.html first to login.
> Next, I then post the data to www.somewebsite.com/cgi-bin/zip_agent.
> Question is, how do i put them in one command line without any
> interactive.

See the other messages (and for that see the archives), there were
several messages with concrete examples.

Whether it works if you follow those examples depends on the Web
site.  I don't know what kind of "login" mechanism that first page
uses.  The server may reject the submission even if the login
mechanism is compatible with "-auth=", maybe because it requires
something that is only done in javascript, maybe they just reject
everything that doesn't come from a Netscape or Microsoft browser, etc.

They may have no interest in making non-interactive requests work,
they may want to force you to go through the "login" interactively,
it all depends, and you didn't give much concrete information.
(I suppose the pages in question are not really on the server
called "www.somewebsite.com".)

If you can read javascript, you may be able to guess what
ValidateLookupForm() is supposed to do.

As for your other questions,
> Does Lynx support javascript or vbscript?  If not, how do I bypass this
> problem?

No it doesn't.  It would be up to the Web page author to make the form
submission work when javascript is off (or unimplemented).  Or if that's
impossible (it shouldn't), at least provide a meaningful error message.
They're either too lazy, or want to force everyone to use javascript,
or don't know there is a problem (so you should write them and ask).


   Klaus