What is it ?
Common Gateway Interface. These are usually quite small ( though not
always ! ) programs that can be run from the browser.
Why should I use it ?
It will allow your visitor to ' interact ' with the website, it will also
enable you to make pages that change. For example you may have noticed at
the top of some of the pages on this site there is a silly little quote
that changes each time you refresh the page, well that was done using a
CGI script. Other uses of CGI script are to provide form to E-Mail, banner
rotation, polls, chat rooms and numerous other functions.
How do I use it ?
This part is really for those with at least a small understanding of the
principles of using CGI scripts. If you are new then you can find some
good tutorials by following the ' resources ' listed in the table on the
left. You will also find some very good scripts to use there, quite a lot
of them are free. If you have any problems please do not hesitate to get
in contact with me.
Each host has different requirements for running CGI scripts, usually they
have to be placed in a cgi-bin, but with our hosting it does not matter
where you place the scripts. Having said that we do recomend that you
create one folder in your directory for all your CGI scripts as it will
make it easy for you to keep track of them.
The information you need for installing scripts :
Perl 5 is installed and the path is :
#!/usr/bin/perl
The base path to your Web directory is :
/home/sites/www.yoursite.com/web
The path to sendmail program is :
/usr/sbin/sendmail
The extension for CGI script can be either .cgi or .pl as both will work.
Make sure you upload your CGI files in ASCII format, if you use binary the
script could become corrupt. |
