Fix issue #15: Mechanize discards first URL after self-closing anchor tag

[Copilot]

Problem

When WWW::Mechanize encountered a self-closing anchor tag like <a name="anchor"/>, it would discard the first link that appeared immediately after it. This was originally reported in 2007 as issue #15 via RT.

For example, given this HTML:

<h1>hello world</h1>
<a name="anchor"/>
<p><a href="http://www.url1.com/gi1?a=1">test1</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.url2.com/gi2?a=2">test2</a></p>

Before this fix, mech-dump --links would only return:

http://www.url2.com/gi2?a=2

The first link (test1) was completely missing.

Root Cause

The _link_from_token() method in lib/WWW/Mechanize.pm unconditionally called $parser->get_trimmed_text("/a") for all <a> tags to extract the link text.

For self-closing tags like <a name="anchor"/>, this call caused HTML::TokeParser to read forward until it found the next </a> closing tag. Unfortunately, that closing tag belonged to the subsequent link (test1), so the entire first link was consumed during text extraction and never processed.

Solution

Modified _link_from_token() to check if a tag is self-closing before calling get_trimmed_text(). HTML::TokeParser marks self-closing tags with a '/' key in the attributes hash. Self-closing tags have no content, so calling get_trimmed_text() is both unnecessary and causes this bug.

The fix is minimal - just 4 lines with comments explaining the check.

Testing

• Added comprehensive test case t/anchor_name_bug.t that reproduces the exact scenario from the original issue report
• All existing tests continue to pass
• Verified with mech-dump that both links are now properly extracted
• Tested edge cases including multiple consecutive self-closing anchors, mixed anchor types, and empty anchor tags

After this fix, mech-dump --links correctly returns both links:

http://www.url1.com/gi1?a=1
http://www.url2.com/gi2?a=2

Closes #15

Warning

Firewall rules blocked me from connecting to one or more addresses (expand for details)

I tried to connect to the following addresses, but was blocked by firewall rules:

• blahblahblah.xx-only-testing.foo
  • Triggering command: /usr/bin/perl t/local/failure.t (dns block)
• esm.ubuntu.com
  • Triggering command: /usr/lib/apt/methods/https (dns block)

If you need me to access, download, or install something from one of these locations, you can either:

• Configure Actions setup steps to set up my environment, which run before the firewall is enabled
• Add the appropriate URLs or hosts to the custom allowlist in this repository's Copilot coding agent settings (admins only)

Original prompt

---

This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>WM: Mechanize seemed to discard the first URL after this tag in a html page</issue_title>
<issue_description>petda...@gmail.com reported on Nov 9, 2007

From http://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=22891

From:  	henrywong@yahoo.com
Download (untitled) [text/plain 1.6k]
OK, the real problem turned out to be

Mechanize seemed to discard the first URL after this <a ame="anchor"/>
tag in a html page.

<h1> hello world</h1> <a name="anchor"/>
<p><a href="http://www.url1.com/gi1?a=1">test1</a><p>
<p><a href="http://www.url2.com/gi2?a=2">test2</a><p>


mech-dump -links for above html code returns
http://www.url2.com/gi2?a=2

Details

Imported from Google Code issue 15 via archive

• Type: Defect
• Date: Nov 9, 2007
• Reporter: petda...@gmail.com
• Owner: petda...@gmail.com
• Priority: Medium
• Status: Accepted
• Labels: WM

Comments

petda...@gmail.com commented on Apr 24, 2011 :

(No comment was entered for this change.)

• Labels : WM

</issue_description>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

@simbabque Someone attempting this would have to start with a test to see if this still happens. Even if it does not, we'll happily accept just the test.

Fixes #119

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[haarg]

<a name="anchor"/> is not a self closing tag in HTML. A trailing / does not denote a self closing tag, it is just ignored. a tags are required to have a closing tag, so this is not really valid HTML. A proper parser will keep the first a tag open until it is implicitly closed by the start of the second a tag, because a tags cannot be nested.