Re: [SL] Programatically Entering Sales Orders

[R P. <arc...@mt...>]

On Monday 13 November 2006 2:34 pm, Tony Fraser wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-11-13 at 14:32 -0500, C. Duncan Hudson wrote:
> > I have several shell scripts that load invoices & pos, and which
> > print 
> > pick lists.  I'm in the process of moving them all to
> > LWP::UserAgent.  
> > The way I see it I'm safer with LWP then I am with the API - the API 
> > requirements are far more likely to change then the screens are.
> > Even 
> > if the screens do change then it's pretty straight forward updating
> > the 
> > Perl script.  Also, I agree that it's better to not have to shell to 
> > call the API as that's just another point of failure.  It's also 
> > difficult to determine whether the API call actually worked or not.
> > I 
> > think there was some talk, along time ago, about a Perl module for 
> > SQL-Ledger, but that would get outdated in no time.  LWP, in my
> > opinion, 
> > is a better fit.
> 
> I agree with your LWP opinion. The API and the HTML forms are basically
> the same. All the API is is a way to supply the CGI scripts a query
> string as a command line parameter. I also think that scripts that use
> LWP (or any HTTP library) are more flexible, all they need is HTTP
> access to you SQL Ledger installation. They don't need to run locally on
> the SQL Ledger server.
> 
> Some time ago I wrote this proof of concept code:
> http://openledger.sourceforge.net/SL-Api.tar.gz
> 
> Basically, it provides a simple to understand PERL API by automating the
> SQL Ledger web interface with LWP anf HTML::Form in the background. As
> it was only a proposal and no one showed any interest in it at the time
> it only works with the GL. Adding more modules shouldn't be a big deal
> though.

When I had to repost a bunch of invoices to solve a COGS out of order problem, I used 
WWW:Mechanize which wraps up functionality found in LWP.   Works with HTTPS too.
Nice and simple..... goto page... fill form..submit form.......  :)

http://cpanratings.perl.org/dist/WWW-Mechanize
http://search.cpan.org/~petdance/WWW-Mechanize/

Cheers !
Roy