# Following a Javascript Link Using Mechanize **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [June 26, 2007, 5:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/following-a-javascript-link-using-mechanize/107836 "2007-06-26T17:16:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mwalsh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/91b2a8/32.png) [@mwalsh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mwalsh)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 5:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/following-a-javascript-link-using-mechanize/107836/1 "2007-06-26T17:16:48Z")
Hello, I am on a page that lists 78 items and can only show 25 per page, so are links for each page of results and a “Next \>” link. I’d like to get Mechanize to follow the Next link but the link looks like this: Next \> If I try to “click” the link, Mechanize raises an “unsupported scheme” exception. At this point I am using all sorts of fun regular expressions to parse the Javascript and send the appropriate values to the page with a WWW::Mechanize.post call. Is there an easier way? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![mwalsh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/91b2a8/32.png) [@mwalsh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mwalsh)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2007, 11:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/following-a-javascript-link-using-mechanize/107836/2 "2007-06-26T23:53:43Z")
On 6/26/07, Matt W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > If I try to “click” the link, Mechanize raises an “unsupported scheme” > exception. At this point I am using all sorts of fun regular > expressions to parse the Javascript and send the appropriate values to > the page with a WWW::Mechanize.post call. Is there an easier way? > Thanks. This would require Mechanize to have a Javascript interpreter. In theory this is possible (there are several open source Javascript interpreters), but for most cases this is a bit of overkill. Of course with all the AJAX sites these days it might not be a terrible idea. In addition the HTML parser might need to be better and would need to provide a DOM interface for the Javascript to use. Either way it is a big complicated project, and I doubt something the Mechanize maintainer would want to implement. If you REALLY want to look into this I would recommend taking a look at the WebKit ([www.webkit.org](http://www.webkit.org)) Javascript interpreter, it seems to be pretty self-contained and quite fast. Ryan ---
**Author:** ![mwalsh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/91b2a8/32.png) [@mwalsh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mwalsh)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 12:38am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/following-a-javascript-link-using-mechanize/107836/3 "2007-06-27T00:38:46Z")
On 6/26/07, Ryan L. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Either way it is a big complicated project, and I doubt something the > Mechanize maintainer would want to implement. If you REALLY want to > look into this I would recommend taking a look at the WebKit > ([www.webkit.org](http://www.webkit.org)) Javascript interpreter, it seems to be pretty > self-contained and quite fast. Actually, I think Aaron is working on a project RKelly, which converts Javascript to Ruby. I can only guess that it would at least give him (at least limited) support for js in mechanize. ---
**Author:** ![mwalsh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/91b2a8/32.png) [@mwalsh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mwalsh)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 12:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/following-a-javascript-link-using-mechanize/107836/4 "2007-06-27T00:50:46Z")
Matt W. wrote: > expressions to parse the Javascript and send the appropriate values to > the page with a WWW::Mechanize.post call. Is there an easier way? > Thanks. As others have said, you would need a javascript interpreter. I think I know about one of those. It’s called a web browser =). This is probably not the ideal solution, but it will work without many headaches. You can use one of two libraries (firewatir and watir) to control a web browser (firefox or internet explorer) from ruby. You can do just about everything besides download files (though you can get at the source of a page, and probably a .css file, as well). It might be worth a try. Dan