# Post to external form **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 18, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/post-to-external-form/160591 "2009-02-18T01:19:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/frank_programmer)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/post-to-external-form/160591/1 "2009-02-18T01:19:39Z")
Hi, This is probably a dumb question but I can’t figure it out. How do you post to an external form? I think the easiest way would be to do a GET on the URL with the query arguments but I don’t know how to do that in a Ruby on Rails controller. And it’d be cool to figure out if the form submitted correctly. ## Thanks, Frank K. > **[betweengo.com](http://ww38.betweengo.com/)** > > This domain may be for sale! ---
**Author:** ![frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/frank_programmer)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 3:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/post-to-external-form/160591/2 "2009-02-18T15:09:59Z")
Frank, What do you mean? You can’t post TO a form, you post FROM a form… Cheers, Sazima ---
**Author:** ![frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/frank_programmer)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/post-to-external-form/160591/3 "2009-02-18T18:10:39Z")
I probably did not say it right. I’ll try again. 🙂 There is a form on another website. I want to submit data to this external from from my RoR app. I thought a simple way would be to do a get on the URL of the form with query arguments for the different fields of the form. But I don’t even know how to do that. Can anyone help? On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 6:08 AM, Sazima [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > This is probably a dumb question but I can’t figure it out. – Frank K. [http://betweengo.com/](http://betweengo.com/) ---
**Author:** ![frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/frank_programmer)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 10:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/post-to-external-form/160591/4 "2009-02-18T22:19:54Z")
Thanks. That’s really helpful, I’ll try it out. On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Jeff L. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On Feb 18, 8:59 am, Frank K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > – > > Frank K.[http://betweengo.com/](http://betweengo.com/) – Frank K. [http://betweengo.com/](http://betweengo.com/) ---
**Author:** ![frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@frank\_programmer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/frank_programmer)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/post-to-external-form/160591/5 "2009-02-18T20:09:52Z")
Hi Frank, What you need to do is a bit of http client programming. There are lots of options, including: [http://dev.ctor.org/http-access2](http://dev.ctor.org/http-access2) [http://rfuzz.rubyforge.org](http://rfuzz.rubyforge.org) [http://curb.rubyforge.org](http://curb.rubyforge.org) … Whatever you use depends on your needs/tastes. A simplified (non-error-checked) example of retrieving the current google stock price and change from yahoo via POST (even tho quote.csv is GET’able) using ruby’s Net:HTTP ([RDoc Documentation](http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/) libdoc/net/http/rdoc/classes/Net/HTTP.html): $ irb irb(main):001:0\> require ‘net/http’ =\> true irb(main):002:0\> require ‘uri’ =\> false irb(main):003:0\> app\_uri = URI.parse(‘http:// [download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv](http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv)’) =\> #\ irb(main):004:0\> params = {‘s’=\>‘GOOG’, ‘f’=\>‘l1c1’} =\> {“f”=\>“l1c1”, “s”=\>“GOOG”} irb(main):005:0\> price,change = Net::HTTP.post\_form(app\_uri, params).body.chomp.split(‘,’) =\> [“351.10”, “+8.44”] You probably don’t want to use Net::HTTP tho, given it’s limitations. Personally, of the various ruby http clients I’ve used, I have yet to find one that I end up using more than I do just wrapping wget (http:// [wget(1): non-interactive network downloader - Linux man page](http://linux.die.net/man/1/wget)), when available for use, given all of the inherent built-in goodies/flexibility provided by wget. Here’s a similar simplified wget example of the above: $ irb irb(main):001:0\> require ‘cgi’ =\> true irb(main):002:0\> app\_url = ‘[http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/](http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/) quotes.csv’ =\> “[http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv](http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv)” irb(main):003:0\> params = {‘s’=\>‘GOOG’, ‘f’=\>‘l1c1’} =\> {“f”=\>“l1c1”, “s”=\>“GOOG”} irb(main):004:0\> postable\_params = params.to\_a.collect {|k,v| “# {CGI::escape(k)}=#{CGI::escape(v)}” }.join(‘&’) =\> “f=l1c1&s=GOOG” irb(main):005:0\> price,change = `wget -o /dev/null -T 2.0 --post-data '#{postable_params}' -O - '#{app_url}'`.chomp.split(‘,’) =\> [“349.80”, “+7.14”] Jeff