Python Forum

Is using requests post method the correct way to fill in a search box on a website?

I have been reading the docs and they all seem to suggest using the requests get method adding the search query to the url.

The problem I have is the website uses a search box which I need to put text in (I think). So I need to

• go to page
  
• Locate search box
  
• Enter text
  
• Submit
  
• Scrape results
  

The site uses json as well and I am not sure if that would make a difference to how the code would need done.

Any help with what I should be looking at would be greatly appreciated.

(https://online.transport.wa.gov.au/webEx...20409949?0)

This is the page that the search box is on.

https://online.transport.wa.gov.au/webEx...ket/page?1

This is the results page after a search.

I can use selenium to carry out what I want to do but I want to do it with just python and requests as selenium is not compatible with my iPhone and Pythonista.

I could use mechanize, but I would still prefer to do it with just python.

https://online.transport.wa.gov.au/webEx...1684915326

This is from inspecting the header after I have pasted in the full Rego

https://online.transport.wa.gov.au/webEx...tration/?0

This is what the URL looks like before any information is passed into the search box.

I assume i need to do something with this part of the URL

-1.IBehaviorListener.2-layout-layout_body-registrationRequestForm-plate&random=0.49404731684915326)

I don't understand how I can replace the plate&random.

The request content type is

application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8

requests.post('https://httpbin.org/post', data={'key':'value'})
Can anyone explain this for me? I think i need to fill the dictionary with the rego something like

requests.post('https://online.transport.wa.gov.au/webExternal/registration/post', data={'plate' : 'rego'}
Getting confused cant rreally locate an example of what i am trying to do

import requests

URL = "https://online.transport.wa.gov.au/webExternal/registration/?0"

rego = "1hdv243"

PARAMS = {'plate':rego}

response = requests.get(url = URL, params = PARAMS)

results = requests.get('https://online.transport.wa.gov.au/webExternal/registration/wicket/page?2')


print(response.headers)
print(results.json)
print(results.content)
print(results.text)
print(results.headers)
print(results.body)

Some code i have been trying.

Seems to pull some stuff back but not what i want…

And also says page has expired

Please paste the code in code format. It's really hard to understand the code if you just paste it as text.