CGI Programming on the World Wide Web - Softcover

Gundavaram, Shishir

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565921682 ISBN 13: 9781565921689

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, 1996

Synopsis

The World Wide Web is more than a place to put up clever documents and pretty pictures. With a little study and practice, you can offer interactive queries and serve instant information from databases, worked up into colorful graphics. That is what the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) offers.This book offers a comprehensive explanation of CGI and related techniques for people who hold on to the dream of providing their own information servers on the Web.Good scripting is not limited to a knowledge of CGI -- you need to know something about other programming tools that organize data and make the output look attractive. Gundavaram starts at the beginning, explaining the value of CGI and how it works, and takes you swiftly into the subtle details of programming. The book offers a comprehensive look at the job of providing information dynamically on the Web.For most of the examples, this book uses the most common platform (UNIX) and the most popular language (Perl) used for CGI programming today. However, it also introduces the essentials of making CGI work with other platforms and languages. The actual programming techniques are not too different from one platform and language to another; the lessons from this book can be applied to any tools you choose.Topics include:

• Basic Perl techniques for parsing and output
• Embedding Server Side Includes (SSI)
• Graphics and simple animation
• Forms and magic cookies
• Gateways and SQL processing
• Internet communications
• Examples of games, imagemap manipulation, and other advanced applications

About this title

Review

O'Reilly has done it again! This is my favorite book yet on writing CGI scripts with Perl (5.0). The extensive use of real world applications you can try while learning, and the great examples of how to have CGI interact with databases are especially useful. I suspect I shall order several copies for some of our staff who are new to CGI. Although the book has a UNIX bias, it has much to offer scripters on all platforms.

Note that many competitors cram a CD-ROM into their books to give greater "shelf appeal". Don't be fooled. O'Reilly continues its economically and ecologically sensible approach of pointing you to their FTP site to obtain the example code used in the book. (Thanks, Tim!) Highly Recommended.

From the Back Cover

CGI Programming on the World Wide Web is aimed at programmers who are getting started with CGI. While this book teaches you the basics of CGI, it also goes far beyond the "everyday" variety of CGI applications. After introducing you to simple techniques, the book dives into detailed examples with advanced real-life solutions in CGI. The book includes examples of embedding counters into HTML pages, displaying dynamic graphics and pie graphs, animating graphics using server push and client pull, incorporating relational databases into your Web site, passing data between multiple forms, creating graphical interfaces to applications using clickable imagemaps, implementing mail and search gateways, and communicating with other Internet services such as Archie and Usenet. Almost all programming examples in this book are written in Perl, the most popular language for CGI. But the techniques shown in this book can also be applied to any language you choose.

Edition details

• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 1565921682
• ISBN 13: 9781565921689
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 450