Using casperjs

Installation

• Install nodejs
• download casperjs and phantomjs
• install them and put there directory in the PATH

Post install configuration

• To make Casper run with phantomjs 2.0 =>

  • changed the version function in bootstrap.js

  (function(version) {
    // required version check
    if (phantom.casperEngine === 'phantomjs') {
      if (version.major === 1) {
        if (version.minor < 9) {
          return __die('CasperJS needs at least PhantomJS v1.9 or later.');
        }
        if (version.minor === 9 && version.patch < 1) {
          return __die('CasperJS needs at least PhantomJS v1.9.1 or later.');
        }
      } else if (version.major === 2) {
        // No requirements yet known
      } else {
        return __die('CasperJS needs PhantomJS v1.9.x or v2.x');
      }
    }
  })(phantom.version);

  • Added a block of code in boostrap.js

  var system = require('system');
  var argsdeprecated = system.args;
  argsdeprecated.shift();
  phantom.args = argsdeprecated;

Using a proxy

• Run fiddler listening on port 8888
• Launch casper with line

D:\Programs\casperjs\bin\casperjs.exe --proxy=localhost:8888 .\testcasper.js

Managing Cookies

WARNING: phantom.addCookie() accept only one cookie object per call.

• Reading cookies from file:

var fs = require('fs');
var cookieFilename = "./cookies.json";

if (fs.exists(cookieFilename)) {
  console.log("setting cookies");
  var cookiesJsn = fs.read(cookieFilename);
  var cookies = JSON.parse(cookiesJsn);
  for(var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
    phantom.addCookie(cookies[i]);
  }
}

• Saving cookies to file:

casper.then(function() {
  cookiesJsn = JSON.stringify(phantom.cookies);
  console.log("get cookies: " + cookiesJsn);
  fs.write(cookieFilename,cookiesJsn,'w');
});

Passing parameters to script with casper cli

var login = "toto"
var password = "titi"
if (casper.cli.has('login')) {
  login = casper.cli.get('login');
}

if (casper.cli.has('password')) {
  password = casper.cli.get('password');
}

casper.echo("Login = " + login + ", Password = " + password)

Write Casper steps

Casper is asynchronous , thus it's better to use waitSomething for all steps. For instance waitUntilVisible("id") for the element to click/fill/read.

casper.start('http://www.tomsguide.fr/');

casper.waitUntilVisible('#usrSignin', function clickOnConnect() {
    this.mouseEvent('mouseover', '#usrSignin');
    this.click('#usrSignin');
});

casper.waitUntilVisible('.login-form',...

Investigation on targeted page

• Use of Chrome webdevelopper
• Use of Casper debugHTML function:

casper.start('http://www.tomsguide.fr/', function() {
    this.echo(this.getTitle());
    this.debugHTML('#usrSignin', true);
    this.mouseEvent('mouseover', '#usrSignin');
    this.debugHTML('#usrSignin', true);
    this.click('#usrSignin');
});

<span id="usrSignin" class="js-referer bom-omniture-tl crLink" data-omniture-community-context="Sign in/Sign up from header" onmouseover="BOM.Utils.decodeLiveAndWrap('aHR0cDovL3d3dy50b21zZ3VpZGUuZnIvY29tbXVuYXV0ZS9sb2dpbg==', this);" data-href="#">Se connecter / S'enregistrer</span>
<a id="usrSignin" class="js-referer bom-omniture-tl crLink" data-omniture-community-context="Sign in/Sign up from header" data-href="#" href="http://www.tomsguide.fr/communaute/login"><span>Se connecter / S'enregistrer</span></a>

• Inspect elements within the page with evaluate

casper.then(function fillLoginForm() {
  var forms = this.evaluate(function evaluateLoginPage() {
    var forms = document.querySelectorAll("form");
    var values = Array.prototype.map.call(forms, function mapForms(obj) {
      return obj.outerHTML;
    });
    return values;
  });
  utils.dump(forms);
});

Note on html/cookies

• It's possible to set multiple class on an element

<h1 class="class1 class2 class3">