Activating PERL

[DarkGenius]

Hello

i want to create a web application that runs locally, on my hard disk. i know html, javascript, java, and a bit of c/c++.
since i need to make dynamic web pages, i want to be able to connect a c or java program to my site, i know perl can do that, i even have a cgi file to do it. but I don't know anything about perl. how do i get it to run. my files are in my sites folder, where should i put the cgi file? do i have to activate perl in some way? i know mac os x has it installed. can anybody give me some information.
thanks a lot
jutho

 

[Pardus]

Hey Genious, if your such a genious how come you cant figure it out

Just kidding...check out the apple site at
http://developer.apple.com/internet/macosx/perl.html

Check out the Cgi-Resources site for a zillion scripts, (well actually 3500 or something)
http://cgi-resources.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/
good luck

 

[Eckhart]

Add the following line to your httpd.conf and apache wil run any file with the .cgi extension.

AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

It is not the safest way to do, but I guess you maintain a single user web server, so who cares?

.cgi must not be Perl, it can be nearly any language. So it might look clumsy to use perl ``to connect a c or java program to'' your web site.

 

[DarkGenius]

thanks for the reply.
so i can type the code for my web app, in c for example, and then just rename it to a .cgi file, and that works...
as you see, i have now experience about this stuff at all. but if not in perl (for which we've just got the code in college), how can i reach my querystring, and should i use a main function, (if we're talking about c/c++)?

 

[Arden]

Why not just use PHP? It's as easy to activate and program, and you don't need a separate CGI program. All you need is to embed the script in your pages.

 

[symphonix]

Not exactly, Dark Genius. Code for Perl scripts has to be written in the Perl language. It is saved as a plaintext file with execute privileges enabled, and is placed in the /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables folder (or can be run from any folder if you add the line Eckhart suggested).

The perl script begins with the shebang:
#!/usr/bin/perl

You should be able to run C programs from a Perl script and parse the results, if you want to. Perl doesn't require any setting up to function on Mac, just put the executable scripts into the CGI-Executables folder.