The sfWebBrowserPlugin proposes an HTTP client capable of making web requests. The interface is similar to that of sfTestBrowser.
- Querying a Web service
- Monitoring a Website
- Mashup of content from several websites
- Aggregation of RSS feeds
- Proxy to another server
- Cross-domain AJAX interactions
- API to foreign websites
- Fetch images and other types of content
- ...
This plugin contains four classes: sfWebBrowser, sfCurlAdapter, sfFopenAdapter, and sfSocketsAdapter. Unit tests are available in the SVN repository, to be placed in a symfony application's test/ directory.
The sfWebBrowser class makes web requests based on a URI:
<?php
$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.
<?php
// 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
<?php
$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 associative array.
<?php
$b->get('http://www.example.com/test.php?foo=bar');
$b->get('http://www.example.com/test.php', array('foo' => 'bar'));POST, PUT and DELETE requests are also supported.
<?php
$b->post('http://www.example.com/test.php', array('foo' => 'bar'));
$b->put('http://www.example.com/test.php', array('foo' => 'bar'));
$b->delete('http://www.example.com/test.php', array('foo' => 'bar'));You can access the response in various formats, at your convenience:
<?php
$myString = $b->getResponseText();
$myString = $b->getResponseBody(); // drop the <head> part
$myDomDocument = $b->getResponseDom();
$myDomCssSelector = $b->getResponseDomCssSelector();
$mySimpleXml = $b->getResponseXml();The browser supports HTTP and HTTPS requests, proxies, redirects, and timeouts.
Gzip and deflate content-encoded response bodies are also supported, provided that you have the [http://php.net/zlib zlib extention] enabled.
The browser can use various adapters to perform the requests, and uses the following selection order by default:
sfCurlAdapter: Uses Curl to fetch pages. This adapter is a lot faster thansfFopenAdapter, however PHP must be compiled with thewith-curloption, and thecurlextension must be enabled inphp.ini(which is rarely the case by default) for it to work.sfFopenAdapter: Usesfopen()to fetch pages.fopen()can take an URL as a parameter provided that PHP is compiled with sockets support, andallow_url_fopenis defined totrueinphp.ini. This is the case in most PHP distributions, so the default adapter should work in almost every platform. On the other hand, the compatibility has a cost: this adapter is slow.sfSocketsAdapter: Usesfsockopen()to fetch pages.
Alternatively, you can specify an adapter explicitly when you create a new browser object, as follows:
<?php
// use default adapter, i.e. sfCurlAdapter
$b = new sfWebBrowser(array());
// use sfFopenAdapter
$b = new sfWebBrowser(array(), 'sfFopenAdapter');Currenly, sfCurlAdapter offers slightly more functionality than the other adapters. Namely, it supports multipart file uploads and cookies, which means you can login to a site as well as upload files via forms.
<?php
// upload files via a form
$b = new sfWebBrowser();
$b->post($url_of_form, array(
'file_field' => '/path/to/my/local/file.jpg'
));
// login to a website
$b = new sfWebBrowser(array(), 'sfCurlAdapter', array('cookies' => true));
$b->post($url_of_login_form, array(
'user_field' => $username,
'pass_field' => $password
));Full examples are available in the unit tests.
sfWebBrowser distinguishes to types of error: adapter errors and response errors. Thus, sfWebBrowser calls should be run this way :
<?php
$b = new sfWebBrowser();
try
{
if (!$b->get($url)->responseIsError())
{
// Successful response (eg. 200, 201, etc)
}
else
{
// Error response (eg. 404, 500, etc)
}
}
catch (Exception $e)
{
// Adapter error (eg. Host not found)
}Besides, you should always remember that the response contents may contain incorrect code. Consider it as 'tainted', and therefore always use the escaping when outputting it to a template.
<?php
// In the action
$this->title = (string) $b->getResponseXml()->body->h1
// In the template
?>
<?php echo $title // dangerous ?>
<?php echo $sf_data->get('title') // correct ?>- Install the plugin
$ php symfony plugin:install sfWebBrowserPlugin # for symfony 1.1 and 1.2
$ php symfony plugin-install http://plugins.symfony-project.com/sfWebBrowserPlugin # for symfony 1.0- Clear the cache to enable the autoloading to find the new class
$ symfony ccCookies, caching, and file uploads are not yet supported in any of the packages (some of this functionality is available with sfCurlAdapter, see above).
- jeromemacias: Do not save into stack by default (fixed memory leak)
- jeromemacias: Removed interaction with response (click and setField methods)
- COil: Added the CURL error number in the returned exception
- GromNaN: Inject sf_web_browser as a service (require symfony1 fork with service container)
- francois: Fixed sfCurlAdapter destructor
- francois: Fixed sf1.2 compatibility issue for custom exception
- francois: Fixed a few limit case bugs and made the tests pass
- francois: Fixed README syntax for parameters array
- bmeynell: Fixed custom options in
sfCurlAdapter
- francois: Translated README to Markdown
- francois: Added support for custom options in
sfCurlAdapter - francois: Added suppot for Timeout with
sfCurlAdapter(based on a patch by adoanhuu) - blacksun: Allow for SSL certificate verification
- francois: Added a test to check exceptions thrown by
getResponseXML - bmeynell: added multipart file upload support to
sfCurlAdapter - bmeynell: fixed regex in getResponseBody() which was returning an empty body
- bmeynell:
sfCurlAdapter: Added new options: 'cookies', 'cookies_dir', 'cookies_file', 'verbose', 'verbose_log' - bmeynell:
sfCurlAdapter: Increased speed by Moving some initialization from call() to the constructer - tristan: Easier management of invalid XML responses
- francois: Fixed a bug in
sfFopenAdaptererror handler - bmeynell: Added chunked transfer encoding support to
sfSocketsAdapter - bmeynell: Added support for 301 redirects in
sfSocketsAdapter
- bmeynell: Fixed a bug with
sfCurlAdaptercausing 'Bad Request' error responses - francois: Fixed a bug with
get()whenarg_separator.outputis not set to '&' inphp.ini(patch from river.bright) - francois: Fixed a bug with
get()when query string is already present in the url (based on a patch from Jeff Merlet) - francois: Fixed auto-adapter decision in
sfWebBrowser::__construct()
- francois: Added auto-adapter decision in
sfWebBrowser::__construct() - francois: Changed tested URLs a bit to avoid redirection issues with google
- bmeynell: Added
sfSocketsAdapter - bmeynell:
sfCurlAdapter: more detailed error messages & leaner request setup
- bmeynell, tristan: Allowed for requests with any method in
sfCurlAdapter - tristan: Added
sfWebBrowser::responseIsError() - tristan: Added
sfWebBrowser::getResponseMessage() - tristan: Refactored error management in
sfFopenAdapter
- bmeynell: Fixed bug with relative uri's attempting to use a port other than 80 (sfWebBrowser, 132 - 146)
- bmeynell: Fixed small bug not printing hostname on exception (sfFopenAdapter, 61-62)
- bmeynell: Created sfCurlAdapter and passes all unit tests
- bmeynell: Removed '$changeStack = true' from call() prototype in sfCurlAdapter, sfFopenAdapter, and moved changestack check to sfWebBrowser
- bmeynell: Added $askeet_url to sfWebBrowserTest
- bmeynell: Added easy toggling between adapters in sfWebBrowserTest
- tristan: Added put() and delete() public methods
- tristan: Added unit tests to validate request HTTP method
- francois: Refactored the browser to make it multi-adapter
- francois: '''BC break''' constructor signature changed :
new sfWebBrowser(array $headers, string $adapter_class, array $adapter_options) - francois: Fixed notice when trying to retrieve inexistent header
- francois: Fixed header case normalization
- francois: Transformed setResponseXXX() methods to public
- francois: Fixed caps in
initializeRequestHeaders() - francois: Fixed unit test #40
- tristan: Added support for gzip and deflate.
- tristan: Possibility to pass default request headers to sfWebBrowser's constructor
- tristan: "Accept-Encoding" header is automatically set depending on PHP capabilities
- tristan: Fixed problems with request and response headers case
- tristan: Renamed "browser options" to "adapter options" (http://www.symfony-project.com/forum/index.php/m/21635/)
- tristan: '''BC break''' constructor signature changed :
new sfWebBrowser(array $headers, array $adapter_options) - tristan: Unit tested POST requests
- tristan: Changed way httpd headers are stored internally
- tristan: Fixed small bug in
getResponseBody() - francois: Fixed unit test for malformed headers
- francois: Fixed notice with
getResponseXML()
- francois: Fixed notice with some headers
- francois: Added license and copyright
- francois: Initial release