From: brabuhr@...
Date: 2011-03-08T11:37:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Forms not seen by Mechanize (US Bank login)

On 3/7/11, Phil Henley <dantes990@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm writing a script to login to my bank.  Here's how the login
> procedure works through a web browser:
>
> 1. enter and submit your username on the bank home page
> 2. on a new page: answer a "Shield ID" question (a personalized
> question)
> 3. on a new page: enter your password
> 4. on a new page: you now have access to your account info
>
> Using Firefox and the Live HTTP Headers add-on, I see that javascript
> (or something??) is filling out various forms for me at each step which
> takes me to the next page.  Only one of these forms is visible to the
> user in the browser at each step (login at step 1, and shield id at step
> 2), javascript seems to be filling out the rest of the forms for the
> user.
>
> In my script, I'm using Mechanize to manually fill out and submit all
> these forms.
>
> This works fine until I get to Step 3 where you enter your password.
> When I view the forms on this page with Mechanize only two forms show
> up. The password form (as well as a few others) don't show up.

* Perhaps there is a way to manipulate the DOM to add the missing form
just like Javascript would?  (There appears to be a Mechanize method
to add a field to a form. [1])

* Perhaps there is a way to manually build the POST that would be
generated from the form?

* Try a different library like FireWatir or Celerity?

[1] http://rdoc.info/github/tenderlove/mechanize/master/Mechanize/Form#add_field%21-instance_method