Daniel Stenberg responded to my original suggestion: > > With this information, any time that wget encounters a form whose action is > > "/cgi-bin/auth.cgi", it will enqueue the submission of the form using the > > values provided for the fields "id" and "pw". > > Now, why would wget do this?
There are many examples of sites that require the user to post a form to access other parts of the site -- sometimes the post contains user-supplied data and sometimes it doesn't. If one wants to grab everything on the other side of that form, having wget post the form seems like the way to get there. > Yes, probably: when the <form> tags contains enctype='multipart/form-data' > you need to build an entirely different data stream (RFC1867 is the key > here). You're right. I had not yet thought about that flavor of posting. > I'd also like to point out that curl already supports both regular HTTP POST > as well as multipart formposts. Unless I'm misreading the curl manual, that only allows me to get one page. However, I've never been inclined to invent wheels when I can download them. I will study the curl source code related to posting before I wander too far down this path. Tony
