Wicked Cool Shell Scripts

#64 Checking for Overdue Books at the Library

Most of the lynx-related scripts in this book are built around either passing information to a web server via a method=get form transmission (the passed information is appended to the URL, with a ? separating the URL and its data) or simply scraping information from predefined web page content. There's a third category of page, however, that uses a method=post form transmission for submitting information from the web browser to the remote server.

While more difficult, this method can also be emulated using lynx, as this script shows. This specific script sends a data stream to the Boulder (Colorado) Public Library website, logging the specified user in and extracting a list of books and other items ...