There are times when you might want to have some
dynamic information (information that is not constant) in your HTML
documents. This could include simple information such as the date
and time, or a counter that displays "You are visitor number xxx",
but it could also include such things as pie charts/graphs based
on user input, results from searching a database, or animations.
And the only way you can produce results like these is with CGI
scripts (though you can also do so with client-side applications
like Java and JavaScript, but that's a totally different story!).
Simply put, a script is a program! OK, OK, there
are semantic differences between the two words. If you really want
to know, pick up a book on computer programming (or is that computer
scripting :-)
You can create a lot of magic by writing a CGI program/script.
You can create graphics on the fly, access databases and return
results, and connect to other Internet information servers.
The answer is located in the first three lines of
the Perl manpage:
Perl is an interpreted language optimized for
scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information from those
text files, and printing reports based on that information.
Most CGI applications involve manipulating data in some fashion
and accessing external programs and applications. Perl provides
easy-to-use tools that make these tasks a cinch.
There is a very useful newsgroup:
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi,
that is "monitored" by numerous CGI experts. However, you should
not post a question to this group (or any other
group, for that matter), until you have read the FAQ.
Various mailing lists for CGI and the Web exist, as well.
Here are two of the most popular:
cgi-perl-request@webstorm.com
[https://www.webstorm.com/local/cgi-perl]
This list is for those who are writing or interested in writing
Perl 5 modules for CGI. It is not intended
for any type of CGI support.
Tim Bunce (Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk)
wrote several elegant and useful CGI modules, although they are
currently maintained by Lincoln Stein (lstein@genome.wi.mit.edu).
These modules are located at:
https://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/tools/scripting/CGIperl
Lincoln has also written an excellent book on the Web and
CGI (see the preceding table).
libwww-perlrequest@ics.uci.edu
[https://www.ics.uci.edu/WebSoft/libwww-perl/archive]
libwww-perl is a Perl library that provides
a simple and consistent programming interface to the Web.
You can access the Perl 4 distribution at:
https://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/libwww-perl
The Perl 5 libwww modules are
located at:
https://www.os/oslonett.no/home/aas/perl/www
Are there archives on the net of mailings or postings
about this?
Yes, look at:
The Usenet Newstand (https://CriticalMass.com/Concord/)
All of the comp.infosystems.www.*
newsgroups are archived. In addition, the cgi-perl
and libwww mailing lists are archived as well.
