Debugging: Inspect what's being posted from a form

Sometimes I make parts of a form using PassThruHTML/hidden notes-fields. Mostly because Domino-generated HTML is hard to style (especially radio-buttons/checkboxes). This sometimes work immediately, and sometimes it takes hours to make it work. I've found it a great help to see what is being posted to the server.

There are HTTP-sniffer applications that you can inspect the request with, but I find it easier to post the form to an agent, and then print the request-content as a HTML-table.

Example of output, Jake's FakeNames database, Person-form with a couple of fields filled in.

It's also handy to "echo" get-requests when developing agents: A simple ?OpenAgent

In the demo-application for this blogpost, I've made a (javascript) action-button that rewrites the action-field in the form to point to an agent. The agent tries to print every field in NotesSession.DocumentContext.

To make this work in your applications, (hopefully,) you only have to copy the Script Library, InspectRequest, the agent inspectrequest, and the shared action, Inspect current form-values. Insert the shared action into the form you want to test.

To inspect DocumentContext in other agents, use docToHTML in the Script Library, InspectRequest. As a rare occurence, I've actually documented this function.

To get the current field-values, I trigger the equivalent of @Command( [ViewRefreshFields] ), using the Domino _doClick function.

>> Download demo application