Ajax request in PhantomJs script

ajax, jquery, local, phantomjs

Solution

`page.includeJs()` injects jQuery into the page, so it is only accessible from the page context (inside of `page.evaluate()`). The page context is sandboxed, so you cannot call `phantom.exit()` from the page context, because there is no such object `window.phantom`.

You have two possibilities to make it work.

Blocking AJAX

`jQuery.ajax()` accepts an `async: false` property to make a blocking AJAX call, so you can simply make the call and then continue with the execution in iterative style.

page.open(url, function (status) {
    page.includeJs('http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.min.js', function () {
        console.log("Solve Captcha");
        page.evaluate(function(){
            $.ajax({
                async: false, // this
                url: 'http://localhost/captcha.php',
                data: { filename: 'C:\\wamp\\www\\images\\0.png' },
                type: 'post',
                success: function (output) {
                    console.log('Solved');
                },
            });
        });
        phantom.exit();
    });
});

Wait for completion

`waitFor` from the examples can be used to wait for a specific condition to be set. This condition should be set in the `success` callback of the AJAX call:

page.open(url, function (status) {
    page.includeJs('http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.min.js', function () {
        console.log("Solve Captcha");
        page.evaluate(function(){
            window._finishedCall = false;
            $.ajax({
                url: 'http://localhost/captcha.php',
                data: { filename: 'C:\\wamp\\www\\images\\0.png' },
                type: 'post',
                success: function (output) {
                    console.log('Solved');
                    window._finishedCall = true;
                },
            });
        });
        waitFor(function check(){
            return page.evaluate(function(){
                return window._finishedCall;
            });
        }, function onReady(){
            phantom.exit();
        }, 10000); // 10 seconds maximum timeout
    });
});

The second problem is that you want to make a cross-domain request, because `captcha.php` is on localhost and `url` is distinct from localhost. You need to run PhantomJS with the `--web-security=false` option and use fully qualified URLs: `http://localhost/captcha.php`.

Problem

Original source