Performance testing

Why Use HTTP::Recorder?
Simply speaking, HTTP::Recorder removes a great deal of the tedium from writing scripts for web automation. If you're like me, you'd rather spend your time writing code that's interesting and challenging, rather than digging through HTML files, looking for the names of forms an fields, so that you can write your automation scripts. HTTP::Recorder records what you do as you do it, so that you can focus on the things you care about.
Automated Testing
We all know that testing our code is good, and that writing automated tests that can be run again and again to check for regressions is even better. However, writing test scripts by hand can be tedious and prone to errors. You're more likely to write tests if it's easy to do so. The biggest obstacle to testing shouldn't be the mechanics of getting the tests written — it should be figuring out what needs to be tested, and how best to test it.
Part of your test suite should be devoted to testing things the way the user uses them, and HTTP::Recorder makes it easy to produce automation to do that, which allows you to put your energy into the parts of your code that need your attention and your expertise.
Automate Repetitive Tasks
When you think about web automation, the first thing you think of may be automated testing, but there are other uses for automation as well:
Check your bank balance.
Check airline fares.
Check movie times.
How to Set It Up
Use It with a Web Proxy
One way to use HTTP::Recorder (as recommended in the POD) is to set it as the user agent of a web proxy (see HTTP::Proxy by Phillipe "BooK" Bruhat). Start the proxy running like this:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use HTTP::Proxy;
use HTTP::Recorder;
my $proxy = HTTP::Proxy->new();
# create a new HTTP::Recorder object
my $agent = new HTTP::Recorder;
# set the log file (optional)
$agent->file("/tmp/myfile");
# set HTTP::Recorder as the agent for the proxy
$proxy->agent( $agent );
# start the proxy
$proxy->start();
1;
Then, instruct your favorite web browser to use your new proxy for HTTP traffic.
Other Ways to Use It
Since HTTP::Recorder is a subclass of LWP::UserAgent, so you can use it in any way that you can use its parent class.