# 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&#039;s `test/` directory.

## Features

The `sfWebBrowser` class makes web requests based on a URI:
    
    $b = new sfWebBrowser();
    $b-&gt;get(&#039;http://www.example.com/&#039;);
    $res = $b-&gt;getResponseText();
    

The usual methods of the `sfTestBrowser` also work there, with the fluid interface. 
    
    // Inline
    $b-&gt;get(&#039;http://www.example.com/&#039;)-&gt;get(&#039;http://www.google.com/&#039;)-&gt;back()-&gt;reload();
    // More readable
    $b-&gt;get(&#039;http://www.example.com/&#039;)

      *&gt;get(&#039;http://www.google.com/&#039;)

      *&gt;back()

      *&gt;reload();
    

The browser accepts absolute and relative URIs
    
    $b-&gt;get(&#039;http://www.example.com/test.html&#039;);
    $b-&gt;get(&#039;test.html&#039;);
    

The `get()` method accepts parameters either as a query string, or as an array.
    
    $b-&gt;get(&#039;http://www.example.com/test.php?foo=bar&#039;);
    $b-&gt;get(&#039;http://www.example.com/test.php&#039;, array(&#039;foo&#039;, &#039;bar&#039;));
    

Requests in POST mode are also supported.
    
    $b-&gt;post(&#039;http://www.example.com/test.php&#039;, array(&#039;foo&#039;, &#039;bar&#039;));
    

You can access the response in various formats, at your convenience:
    
    $myString         = $b-&gt;getResponseText();
    $myString         = $b-&gt;getResponseBody(); // drop the &lt;head&gt; part
    $myDomDocument    = $b-&gt;getResponseDom();
    $myDomCssSelector = $b-&gt;getResponseDomCssSelector();
    $mySimpleXml      = $b-&gt;getResponseXml();
    

You can also interact with the response with the `setFields()` and `click()` methods.

    
    $b-&gt;get(&#039;http://www.example.com/login&#039;)

      *&gt;setField(&#039;user&#039;, &#039;foobar&#039;)

      *&gt;setField(&#039;password&#039;, &#039;barbaz&#039;)

      *&gt;click(&#039;submit&#039;);
    

The browser supports HTTP and HTTPS requests, proxies, redirects, and timeouts.

## Installation

  * Install the plugin
    
    $ symfony plugin-install http://plugins.symfony-project.com/sfWebBrowserPlugin
    

  * Clear the cache to enable the autoloading to find the new class
    
    $ symfony cc
    

## 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.