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
- Proxy to another server
- Cross-domain AJAX interactions
- API to foreign websites
- ...
Contents
This plugin contains three classes: sfWebBrowser, sfFopenAdapter, andsfCurlAdapter. 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'));
POST, PUT and DELETE requests are also supported.
$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:
$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.
Gzip and deflate content-encoded response bodies are also supported, provided that you have the zlib extention enabled.
Adapters
The browser can use various adapters to perform the requests:
sfFopenAdapter (default): Uses fopen() to fetch pages. fopen() can take an URL as a parameter provided that PHP is compiled with sockets support, and allow_url_fopen is defined to true in php.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.
sfCurlAdapter: Uses Curl to fetch pages. This adapter is a lot faster than sfFopenAdapter, however PHP must be compiled with the with-curl option, and the curl extension must be enabled in php.ini (which is rarely the case by default) for it to work.
You can specify an adapter when you create a new browser object, as follows:
// use default adapter, i.e. sfFopenAdapter
$b = new sfWebBrowser(array());
// use sfCurlAdapter
$b = new sfWebBrowser(array(), 'sfCurlAdapter');
Usage
sfWebBrowser distiguishes to types of error: adapter errors and response errors. Thus, sfWebBrowser calls should be run this way :
$b = new sfWebBrowser();
try
{
if (!$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.
// In the action
$this->title = (string) $b->getResponseXml()->body->h1
// In the template
<?php echo $title // dangerous ?>
<?php echo $sf_data->get('title') // correct ?>
Installation
Known limitations
If allow_url_fopen is not defined to true and if the curl extension cannot be activated in the php.ini file, the browser can't fetch pages. Workaround (todo): use a sockets adapter.
Cookies are not handled yet.
Caching is not supported yet.
Changelog
2007-02-22 | 0.9.6 Beta
- bmeynell, tristan: Allowed for requests with any method in
sfCurlAdapter
- tristan: Added
sfWebBrowser::responseIsError()
- tristan: Added
sfWebBrowser::getResponseMessage()
- tristan: Refactored error management in
sfFopenAdapter
2007-02-21 | 0.9.5 Beta
- bmeynell: Fixed bug with relative uri's attempting to use a port other than 80 (sfWebBrowser, 132 - 146)
- bmeynell: Fixed small bug not printing hostname on exception (sfFopenAdapter, 61-62)
- bmeynell: Created sfCurlAdapter and passes all unit tests
- bmeynell: Removed '$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
2007-02-16 | 0.9.4 Beta
- 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
2007-02-16 | 0.9.3 Beta
- 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
2007-02-09 | 0.9.2 Beta
- francois: Fixed notice with
getResponseXML()
2007-02-08 | 0.9.1 Beta
- francois: Fixed notice with some headers
- francois: Added license and copyright
2007-02-08 | 0.9.0 Beta
- francois: Initial release
François Zaninotto 