CGI Scripting
CGI Overview
- Common protocol web servers use to run external programs in response to HTTP requests.
- Typical uses: forms processing, dynamic content generation
How it works
- You write some sort of form in your HTML document
<form method="GET" action="cgi-bin/spam.cgi">
Your name: <input type="text" name="name" size=30><p>
Your email: <input type="text" name="email" size=40><p>
<input type="submit" value="Submit"></form>
- This gets translated into request with parameters
GET /cgi-bin/spam.cgi?name=Dave+Beazley&email=beazley%40cs HTTP/1.0
- Web-server (e.g., Apache) launches CGI program and passes parameters
- That program writes to stdout to produce the web-page.
|