sfWebBrowser plugin
The sfWebBrowserPlugin proposes an HTTP client capable of making web requests. The interface is similar to that of sfTestBrowser.
Possible uses
- Querying a Web service
- Monitoring a Website
- Mashup of content from several websites
- Aggregation of RSS feeds
- ...
Contents
This plugin contains one single class: sfWebBrowser. Unit tests are available in the SVN repository, to be placed in a symfony application's test/ directory.
Features
The sfWebBrowser class makes web requests based on a URI:
$b = new sfWebBrowser();
$b->get('http://www.example.com/');
$res = $b->getResponseText();
The usual methods of the sfTestBrowser also work there, with the fluid interface.
// Inline
$b->get('http://www.example.com/')->get('http://www.google.com/')->back()->reload();
// More readable
$b->get('http://www.example.com/')
*>get('http://www.google.com/')
*>back()
*>reload();
The browser accepts absolute and relative URIs
$b->get('http://www.example.com/test.html');
$b->get('test.html');
The get() method accepts parameters either as a query string, or as an array.
$b->get('http://www.example.com/test.php?foo=bar');
$b->get('http://www.example.com/test.php', array('foo', 'bar'));
Requests in POST mode are also supported.
$b->post('http://www.example.com/test.php', array('foo', 'bar'));
You can access the response in various formats, at your convenience:
$myString = $b->getResponseText();
$myString = $b->getResponseBody(); // drop the <head> part
$myDomDocument = $b->getResponseDom();
$myDomCssSelector = $b->getResponseDomCssSelector();
$mySimpleXml = $b->getResponseXml();
You can also interact with the response with the setFields() and click() methods.
$b->get('http://www.example.com/login')
*>setField('user', 'foobar')
*>setField('password', 'barbaz')
*>click('submit');
The browser supports HTTP and HTTPS requests, proxies, redirects, and timeouts.
Installation
Known limitations
The web request is made via fopen(), so this will only work if PHP is compiled with sockets support and if allow_url_fopen is defined to true in the php.ini.
Cookies are not handled yet.
Caching is not supported yet.
François Zaninotto 
