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CGI & Perl Applications
This section includes or links to information on the following topics:
CGIEmail Instructions
FormMail Instructions
Links to CGI Resources
Internal Server Error Troubleshooter
HTML Perl Documentation (perldoc.com)
What is CGI?
CGI stands for "Common Gateway Interface". CGI is the long-standing standard for passing
information between a server and an application as part of HTTP protocol. CGI is
a consistent way for information to be passed from the Web server to the
application program and back again. The most common use of CGI is in scripting.
A CGI script is a program written with a scripting language such as PERL, Java or C++. Rather than
being compiled into machine code, scripts are interpreted. They link on-screen
forms with background databases. For example, when a user views a web page and
inputs information into a form, a CGI program gathers that data and provides a
response or sends the information elsewhere (as in E-Mail). Almost any time
users are asked to input information on a web site, a CGI script is at work.
CGI scripts typically reside in the CGI-BIN. The "bin" part alludes to the binary executables that
result from compiled or interpreted programs. It is a bit misleading because
CGI's are sometimes commonly called UNIX shell scripts or interpreted languages
like PERL. On our servers, CGI scripts are not required to reside in the cgi-bin
directory -- they can run from anywhere within your www directory. However,
in order to execute from a location outside of the cgi-bin directory, they
must be named with the .cgi extension (as opposed to the .pl
extension, for example.)
So then, what is PERL?
Now we're getting somewhere. PERL, which stands for Practical Extraction Reporting Language, is
one of the most popular programming languages for processing text used on web
sites. PERL is an interpreted program, not a compiled one. This means that your
programming is exclusively in text format, and is executed without the need for
a compiler. (A compiler is a program that changes the
high-level source code of a programming language such as C into the basic
machine language a computer understands.)
A comparatively simple programming language (compared to C++ and other languages that are
compiled), it is robust, flexible and serves the most popularly needed purposes.
Most of the installed scripts on your domain, as well as most of the common CGI scripts
in use elsewhere, are programmed in PERL, so we will pay more
attention to PERL than the other languages.
Support Notes
We cannot provide free technical support on the CGI scripts installed on your account.
The free, preinstalled scripts that are included with your account will run "out-of-the-box"
as installed. You're free to make modifications as you wish, but if the modifications cause
problems, the only solution we can offer is for you to delete the modified script and reinstall
it from your control panel. In some cases, we may be able to offer paid support on an hourly
or per-project basis. Contact our sales department for more information.
If you are not already familiar with CGI scripting, you may want to read a book on the
subject or find
places on the Internet with CGI scripting information. There are many good
resources for CGI scripts found on the web. A popular resource is
The
Perl Archive, which lists nearly 4,000 Perl and CGI programs and offers informative
articles and tutorials for the beginning to the advanced programmer.
View our list of related CGI/PERL links.
CGI & Perl Applications
Source: http://www.hostingmanual.net/cgi/
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