Interacting with forms

A common element present in web pages is forms. Forms are a way of sending values to a web page, for example, to create a new comment on a blog post, or to submit a purchase.

Browsers present forms so you can input values and send them in a single action after pressing the submit or equivalent button. We'll see how to create this action programmatically in this recipe.

Be aware that sending data to a site is normally a more delicate matter than receiving data from it. For example, sending automatic comments to a website is very much the definition of spam. This means that it can be more difficult to automate as it involves considering security measures. Double-check that what you're trying to achieve is a valid, ethical use case.

Getting ready

We'll work against the test server https://httpbin.org/forms/post, which allows us to send a test form and sends back the submitted information.

Note that...