Debugging perl cgi in apache

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: Debugging perl cgi in apache by plaid (Chaplain) on May 10, 2000 at 07:30 UTC
The most important thing you can do is to run this script from the command-line and make sure that it's not a syntax error, before worrying about what actually gets spit out of it. Secondly, the most common mistake to cause that error is that the output of your script needs to begin with the text: `Content-type: text/html` [download] followed by a newline and a blank line. That being said, there are several ways to go about figuring out any remaining problems. First, you could print out debugging messages to the screen and read them that way. Secondly, you could print all debugging messages to STDERR, which is directed to apache's error_log. If you want to get more into it, you could do something like set the environment variable QUERY_STRING in your shell to the list of your form parameters being passed, and then execute the script from the command line. I'm probably going too far here, but I think it's important to understand that a CGI is nothing special.. it is just a program run by a certain user, with its output directed to the viewer's browser.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Debugging perl cgi in apache by lhoward (Vicar) on May 10, 2000 at 07:00 UTC
First off check your apache error logs. Secondly, have a look at the CGI::Carp module, maybe putting `use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);` [download] in your code to get errors reported to the browser.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Debugging perl cgi in apache by btrott (Parson) on May 10, 2000 at 07:20 UTC
First thing to check is whether your script compiles. :) Does it? Then look at your error logs (the location will vary, I think, but mine are at /etc/httpd/logs/, if that helps). Check your permissions, also.	[reply]
Re: Debugging perl cgi in apache by zodiac (Beadle) on May 10, 2000 at 16:41 UTC
you can also start the CGI script from the shell, then the CGI module will prompt you for the query string. and then prints all the output. the usual -w and use strict, might also help, along with checking wether there is an empty line after the last line of the http-header.	[reply]
Re: Debugging perl cgi in apache by Anonymous Monk on May 13, 2000 at 04:37 UTC
Thankyou all very much for the help, when I turned on the CGI::Carp and errors to browser thing, I found my simple mistake (user nobody didn't have permissions to open the log file. doh) :) WooHoo! ($self.happy) thanks.	[reply]
RE: Debugging perl cgi in apache by Russ (Deacon) on May 10, 2000 at 07:31 UTC
I almost hate to mention something so obvious (but it bites me from time-to-time, and seems to be the most common error by less-experienced CGI'ers...) You have printed CGI::header() ('Content-type: text/html') first, right? :-) Russ	[reply]
Re: Debugging perl cgi in apache by chromatic (Archbishop) on May 10, 2000 at 19:30 UTC
One fun thing to do is to redirect errors to the browser. Simply use CGI::Carp: `use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);` Saves you having to look in the error logs, if you're not the administrator.	[reply] [d/l]