Parsing HTML

[luckybob]

I am trying to develop a front end for a website that isn't exactly user friendly. I want to recreate the site so to speak, by using the information from the original site, but parsing the information to my own personal style.

The problem I am having is requestion the page without displaying it. Here is an example.

I have a site with login.cgi in which the username/password are passed to for authintication. How can I authenticate and recive the information without displaying the login.cgi in the browser? I want to display login.php(my file) which has the same info, but edited in a format I like.

So I need to make a call to login.cgi, save its returned contents in a string(?) and parse the information I need from it and diaply it in a different format.

I know this can be done, but I haven't programmed PHP in a while and am a little rusty.

You suggestions are appreciated.
luckybob

[drawmack]

[man]curl[/man]

[luckybob]

I was looking more for something to do with sockets.

If I open a socket and get the raw data of the site, I can parse that. The confusion is how to send post data across the socket.

$server = "https://1.1.1.1/login.cgi";
$port = 80;
$timeout = 15;
$request = "";

$socket = fsockopen($server, $port, $errno, $errstr, $timeout);
fputs($socket, $request);
$ret = '';
while (!feof($socket))
{
  $ret .= fgets($socket, 4096);
}
fclose($socket);

After this is executed I should have the HTML from the server in the $ret variable. My problem is, I am not sure how to send the login information. It is done through the form post, but if I try and enter the variables in the link, it doesn't work. So how can I send post data when creating my socket?

Luckybob

[drawmack]

why mess with raw sockets? Just use [man]curl[/man] with the correct options set. Then you can send the post data you need to send and you can even process cookies if need be. what you'll get back is the output html from the site which can then be parsed into whatever you like.