OpenEuphoria

Re: Using Euphoria for CGI programming

• Posted by Warren Baker <wcbaker at HOME.COM> Mar 16, 1999
• 536 views

Regarding Daniel Berstein's CGI note, I'd like to comment briefly.

CGI does have a heavy involvement with HTML.   Sometimes this means building
HTML files on the fly and sometimes it means taking information from an HTML
file / form, organising it, and putting it in a database  It can be used to
page someone when a stock reaches a certain critical value or it could be
used to send data to some other device based on some condition being met.

In other words, CGI is often used to permit what we might call "Internet
programming" that overcomes the very static way in which HTML processes
information.   However, the HTML connection is NOT by any means the only way
to use CGI.   CGI can be used to screen users, redirect users, and even
gather information (on users, or what they are doing) to be put into some
format such as a database, and often will not be used on the net as html at
all.

So CGI might be described as a kind of bridge, and certainly it can and
usually is used WITH html and sometimes it is used to build HTML files on
the fly.   But it can also extract and organise data from a wide variety of
sources (HTML files, HTML forms, databases via ODBC, and from physical
devices),

But as anyone who is familiar with Perl will be quick to point out, CGI goes
far beyond mere HTML.  It is a way to program on the Internet.

Additionally, cgi files used to be restricted to special directories, often
called CGI-BIN or CGI-LOCAL (for example) for security reasons, but in
recent years, most servers permit the execution of CGI files in any
directory.

I'm certainly NOT questioning Daniel's understanding -- just adding to his
statement so that it might be more complete.

--Warren

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