Python - clicking a javascript button

Question

I have a button on a page that needs to be clicked for me to move on to the next page in a sequence, and I was wondering how this is possible with Python. The button seems to be the mix of an HTTP POST request and Javascript, here is the code for the button:

<FORM name="ff" action="nq2.phtml" method="post">
  <INPUT type="hidden" name="target" value="-1">
  <INPUT type="hidden" name="fact" value="">
  <INPUT type="hidden" name="parm" value="">
  <INPUT type="hidden" name="use_id" value="-1">
  <INPUT type="hidden" name="nxactor" value="1">
  <TD align="center" valign="top">
  <DIV class="pr">
  <A href="javascript:;" onClick="settarget(5); setch(ch5); return false;">

I honestly have no idea how to approach something like this and was wondering if anyone had some insight about how I would go about doing it.

Answer 1

To simulate the submission of a form, you can send the same POST request that your browser will send to the site once the submit button is clicked. One way to do this is use urllib.urlencode to encode the form data from a dictionary and urllib2.urlopen to send the request:

import urllib, urllib2
form_data = urllib.urlencode({'target': <value>, 'fact': <value>, ...})
urllib2.urlopen("np2.phtml", form_data)