0o0o0o0okkkkk... anyone know the whole html variables to perl lark?

mckarl · Jul 12, 2000

hi all,   i am confused to this whole passing parameters across from html to perl idea, (hey, c'mon, i'm used to COBOL!) i cant seem to get my head around the idea of passing them through, and getting them to initialize to a point that the perl code can understand what they are talking about! so, let's say the following... <HTML>       <BODY>       <form action="eskimoes.cgi" method="POST">       eskimoe type:<input type="text" name="esktype" size=30>       </form>       </BODY> </HTML> and my perl code is... #!/usr/bin/perl print "Content-type:html/text\n"; print "<HTML>\n"; -- and this is the point where you guys tell me how to say... the type of eskimoe you input was:$esktype -- ok, see where i'm blowing my brain?? please help, how do i carry on my cgi scriptybabydupher to tell me what i just put in the box? -- basically printing what i just typed into my HTML browser. Thanks all in advance!! Karl. Karl Butterworth <a href=mailto:karl_butterworth@ordina.co.uk>karl_butterworth@ordina.co.uk</a> <a href= > </a> I'm slim shadey, yes i'm the real shadey, all you other slim shadeys are just imitating; so wont the real slim shadey please stand up, please stand up, please stand up!

goBoating · Jul 12, 2000

I'll take a plain english stab at this.....others feel free to elaborate where I miss stuff. When you submit an HTML page that has a <form> tag, the inputs (text, radio button,scrollmenu, etc.) each have a name and a value (kind'a like a hash).  Depending on which <form> method you use in your HTML page, POST or GET, the data is shipped to the web server in one of two ways.  If you use GET, you will see the names and values of the <form> inputs show up in the URI string in the browser.  There is a max size for that URI buffer, so if you have to much data, you can loose some of it with GET.  If you use POST, the name/value pairs are passed through STDIN into the CGI program.  So, either way, the browser sends a list of name-value pairs to the web server. The web server then, catches the request, identifies it as a request for an executable (CGI kind'a stuff), and passes the data via the URI string or STDIN to the CGI code. The CGI then, simply cleans up the name/value pairs and stuffs them in an array. If you are using CGI.pm, this is done when you do $query = new CGI;  All of the ugly stuff is in the CGI.pm box.  If you are not using CGI .pm, or some other similar package/module, then you might have a sub routine that parses the data passed from the browser, cleans it up a little and puts it in an associative array (hash). might look something like...... sub cgidecode { local(%vars, $val, $key, $last, $buffer, $pair, @pairs); # read data from URI or STDIN as appropriate if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq "POST&quot

{ read(STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});} else { $buffer = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}; } # Splitting up the data fields and store in array @pairs, they are seperated with & @pairs = split(/&/, $buffer); # Splitting the variable names and the values and storing them in the assoc. array %vars foreach $pair (@pairs)     {     ($key, $val) = split(/=/, $pair);     # get rid of URI encoding     $val =~ s/\+/ /g;     $val =~ s/%(..)/pack("C",hex($1))/eg;     if ($key eq $last)         { $vars{$key} .= " ".$val; }     else           { $vars{$key} = $val; }     $last = $key;     } # return a hash of the name value pairs. return(%vars); } Some where else in your CGI code you might have a line like... %FORM = &cgidecode; which takes the hash built by the sub routine and calls it %FORM. You can then get at a variable like...... $esktype = $FORM{'esktype'}; or, if you used CGI.pm, $esktype = $query->param('esktype'); 'hope this helps... <a href=mailto: > </a> <a href= > </a> keep the rudder amid ship and beware the odd typo

vcherubini · Jul 14, 2000

Well since you are using the Post method, and I will assume that you will continue to use that, here is the code that you will need in order to parse (extract) the information from the form. read(STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'}); #collects the data from the form @pairs = split(/&/, $buffer); #rids the data of any & and places it in an array called pairs foreach $pair (@pairs) {         ($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);         $value =~ tr/+/ /;         $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;         $FORM{$name} = $value; # and finally, the foreach loop says that foreach value of each form, remove spaces and store it in a varialbe name $FORM{'$name'}.   } Now, if you like, but do not have to, define scalars to each of the fields. For example: $age = $FORM{'age'} print "you said that your age was $age\n"; Where {'age'} is the name of the html text field, such as <input type=text name=age>. Hope this helps. The code is a little different for the Get method due to the fact that you have to get rid of all the un-needed characters in the URL string. -Vic

mckarl · Jul 17, 2000

thankyou all, i have tried both methods, and am beginning to understand the reasons and methods. I am creating a few pages/cGI's so bo doubt i'll be back in here asking for help. Thanks again... everyone Karl. Karl Butterworth <a href=mailto:karl_butterworth@ordina.co.uk>karl_butterworth@ordina.co.uk</a> <a href= > </a> I'm slim shadey, yes i'm the real shadey, all you other slim shadeys are just imitating; so wont the real slim shadey please stand up, please stand up, please stand up!

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0o0o0o0okkkkk... anyone know the whole html variables to perl lark?

mckarl

Programmer

goBoating

Programmer

vcherubini

Programmer

mckarl

Programmer

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