Manipulating and Dumping a Crawler

These methods on theCrawlerare intended to initially populate yourCrawlerand aren't intended to

be used to further manipulate a DOM (though this is possible). However, since theCrawleris a set

ofDOMElement19_{objects, you can use any method or property available onDOMElement}20_,DOMNode21_or DOMDocument22_{. For example, you could get the HTML of aCrawlerwith something like this:}

1 2 3 4 5 $html= '';

foreach ($crawler as $domElement) {

$html .= $domElement->ownerDocument->saveHTML($domElement); }

Or you can get the HTML of the first node usinghtml()23:

$html =$crawler->html();

Links

To find a link by name (or a clickable image by itsaltattribute), use theselectLinkmethod on an existing crawler. This returns aCrawlerinstance with just the selected link(s). Callinglink()gives you a special

Link24_object: 1 2 3 4 5

$linksCrawler= $crawler->selectLink('Go elsewhere...');

$link= $linksCrawler->link(); // or do this all at once

$link= $crawler->selectLink('Go elsewhere...')->link();

15. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.html#method_addHtmlContent 16. http://php.net/manual/en/class.domdocument.php 17. http://php.net/manual/en/class.domnodelist.php 18. http://php.net/manual/en/class.domnode.php 19. http://php.net/manual/en/class.domelement.php 20. http://php.net/manual/en/class.domelement.php 21. http://php.net/manual/en/class.domnode.php 22. http://php.net/manual/en/class.domdocument.php 23. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.html#method_html 24. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Link.html

Listing 48-24

Listing 48-25

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Listing 48-27

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TheLink25_{object has several useful methods to get more information about the selected link itself:} // return the proper URI that can be used to make another request

$uri = $link->getUri();

ThegetUri()is especially useful as it cleans thehrefvalue and transforms it into how it should really

be processed. For example, for a link withhref="#foo", this would return the full URI of the current

page suffixed with#foo. The return fromgetUri()is always a full URI that you can act on.

Images

To find an image by itsaltattribute, use theselectImagemethod on an existing crawler. This returns a Crawlerinstance with just the selected image(s). Callingimage()gives you a specialImage26object:

1 2 3 4 5

$imagesCrawler= $crawler->selectImage('Kitten');

$image = $imagesCrawler->image(); // or do this all at once

$image = $crawler->selectImage('Kitten')->image();

TheImage27object has the samegetUri()method asLink28.

Forms

Special treatment is also given to forms. A selectButton() method is available on the Crawler which returns another Crawler that matches a button (input[type=submit],input[type=image], or abutton) with the given text. This method is especially useful because you can use it to return a Form29 object that represents the form that the button lives in:

1 2 3 4 5 6

$form= $crawler->selectButton('validate')->form(); // or "fill" the form fields with data

$form= $crawler->selectButton('validate')->form(array(

'name' =>'Ryan', ));

TheForm30object has lots of very useful methods for working with forms:

$uri = $form->getUri();

$method =$form->getMethod();

ThegetUri()31_{method does more than just return theactionattribute of the form. If the form method is} GET, then it mimics the browser's behavior and returns theactionattribute followed by a query string of all of the form's values.

You can virtually set and get values on the form:

1 2 3 4 5 6

// set values on the form internally

$form->setValues(array(

'registration[username]' => 'symfonyfan', 'registration[terms]' => 1, )); 25. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Link.html 26. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Image.html 27. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Image.html 28. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Link.html 29. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Form.html 30. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Form.html 31. http://api.symfony.com/master/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Form.html#method_getUri

Listing 48-29 Listing 48-30 Listing 48-31 Listing 48-32 Listing 48-33 7 8 9 10 11 12

// get back an array of values - in the "flat" array like above

$values = $form->getValues();

// returns the values like PHP would see them, // where "registration" is its own array

$values = $form->getPhpValues(); To work with multi-dimensional fields:

1 2 3 4 5 <form>

<input name="multi[]" /> <input name="multi[]" />

<input name="multi[dimensional]" /> </form>

Pass an array of values:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

// Set a single field

$form->setValues(array('multi' => array('value'))); // Set multiple fields at once

$form->setValues(array('multi' => array(

1 => 'value',

'dimensional' => 'an other value'

)));

This is great, but it gets better! TheForm object allows you to interact with your form like a browser, selecting radio values, ticking checkboxes, and uploading files:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

$form['registration[username]']->setValue('symfonyfan'); // check or uncheck a checkbox

$form['registration[terms]']->tick();

$form['registration[terms]']->untick(); // select an option

$form['registration[birthday][year]']->select(1984); // select many options from a "multiple" select

$form['registration[interests]']->select(array('symfony', 'cookies')); // even fake a file upload

$form['registration[photo]']->upload('/path/to/lucas.jpg');