MECH-DUMP(1p)

📦
version 2.22 · 8 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

🦋 MECH-DUMP(1p) — the user-contributed Perl docs, but make it cute

okay bestie, so this is mech-dump, part of the Perl user-contributed manual pages (that's the 1p vibe iykyk). it's a lil command-line icon and it's about to tell you everything about a web page. periodt.

✨ NAME ✨

mech-dump — dumps information about a web page 💖

🌸 VERSION 🌸

version 2.22 — yes she's got a version number, she's official, she's that girl 🎀

💅 SYNOPSIS 💅

here's the whole mood, one line:

mech-dump [options] [file|url]

and now the options, all of them, no skips, no cuts, we're eating the whole plate 🍓

  • --headers — dump the HTTP response headers, the receipts at the top 📬
  • --forms — dump a table of the forms. this one is the default action, so if you just run her with no flags, this is the vibe you get ✨
  • --links — dump a table of the links 🔗
  • --images — dump a table of the images 🖼️
  • --all — dump all four of the above, in that exact order: headers, forms, links, images. the whole sampler platter, no cap 👑
  • --text — dumps the textual part of the web page, just the words, no drama 📝
  • --user=user — set the username 🙋
  • --password=pass — set the password 🔐
  • --cookie-file=filename — set the filename to use for persistent cookies, she likes to remember things 🍪
  • --agent=agent — specify the UserAgent to pass, so you can be whoever you want to be on the internet 🧚
  • --agent-alias=alias — specify the alias for the UserAgent to pass. pick exactly one of these, don't be greedy:
    • Windows IE 6
    • Windows Mozilla
    • Mac Safari
    • Mac Mozilla
    • Linux Mozilla
    • Linux Konqueror
  • --absolute — show URLs as absolute, even if they're relative in the page. glow-up those links, make them fully qualified 💅
  • --help — show this message. the classic, the icon, the one option that's in literally everything 🫶

okay and here's the tea you genuinely cannot skip 🔥

the order of the options you specify is relevant. repeated options get repeated dumps. so like, mech-dump --links --headers --links will actually give you links, then headers, then links again. she's listening. she's taking notes. she does what you say in the order you say it. main character energy fr fr.

mech-dump will only work on HTML documents when you're using it on remote URLs. but for local files, she just assumes any file you pass her is HTML. if it's not HTML? there won't be any usable results, bestie. nothing. not a crumb. 😭

Proxy settings are specified through the environment, like this:

http_proxy=http://proxy.my.place/

see LWP::UserAgent for the details on all that.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

  • WWW::Mechanize — the mothership, the legend, the whole reason this exists 💜

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Andy Lester <andy at petdance.com> — the founder of this whole establishment 🫡

This software is copyright (c) 2004 by Andy Lester.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 📖✨ this was perl v5.40.1 and the date on her birth certificate says 2026-07-15 — go dump some web pages, absolute icon behavior, slay 💅🦋

📦 where this page comes from