CGI redirection

5plit_func has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Good day all i am learning CGI using perl and i developed simple script that redirect a user based on form selection to a given website. the code follows below.

if($query->param('op') eq "ds")
{
    print $query->redirect($query->param('website'));
    
}else
{
    print"
    <html><head><title>Web redirection</title></head>
    <body>
    <form action=\"redirect.pl\" method=\"post\" >
    <fieldset>
    <legend>Kindly select a website to visit</legend>
    <strong>Select a website form the list:</strong>
    <select name=\"website\">
    <option value=\"www.sedocaonline.com\">Sedocaonline.com</option>
    <option value=\"http://www.yahoo.co.uk\">Yahoo.co.uk</option>
    <option value=\"http://www.play.com\">play.com</option>
    </select>
    <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"op\" value=\"ds\" >
    <input type=\"submit\" name=\"submit\" value=\"Browse the web\">
    </form>
    </body>
    </html>";
}
[download]

The issue here is the code does not redirect the user to the selected website it gives this respond code on the browser.

Status: 302 Found Location: www.sedocaonline.com

Please i kindly need your assistance and comments thanks in advance.

Comment on CGI redirection Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: CGI redirection by tobyink (Canon) on Jan 17, 2013 at 14:20 UTC
Did you print an HTTP header before the redirect? Don't do that. `perl -E'sub Monkey::do{say$_,for@_,do{($monkey=[caller(0)]->[3])=~s{::}{ }and$monkey}}"Monkey say"->Monkey::do'`	[reply]
Re^2: CGI redirection by 5plit_func (Beadle) on Jan 18, 2013 at 10:03 UTC
Many thanks tobyink it was the header which was first printed in the body of the documents right at the top of the program so i moved it into the if statement which needed it and it worked. thanks.	[reply]
Re: CGI redirection by NetWallah (Canon) on Jan 17, 2013 at 16:13 UTC
The CGI module documentation on redirect says: You should always use full URLs (including the http: or ftp: part) in redirection requests. Relative URLs will not work correctly. In your case, the entry for "www.sedocaonline.com" is missing the "http://". Most people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.	[reply]
Re: CGI redirection by Anonymous Monk on Jan 17, 2013 at 14:25 UTC
By far the best way to debug a problem like this is to use the debugging facilities of your browser ... such as the Firebug plugin, or turning on the developer menu in others ... and use it to look at exactly what is being sent and received when you go somewhere that achieves a successful redirect. Then, look at your own site and compare the two.	[reply]
Re: CGI redirection by 7stud (Deacon) on Jan 18, 2013 at 00:33 UTC
Also, if you find yourself escaping lots of characters inside a string, you are not taking advantage of perl's numerous quoting mechanisms. Look here: my $html = <<END_OF_HTML; <html> <head><title>Web redirection</title> </head> <body> <form action="redirect.pl" method="post" > <fieldset> <legend>Kindly select a website to visit</legend> <strong>Select a website form the list:</strong> <select name="website"> <option value="www.sedocaonline.com">Sedocaonline.com</option> <option value="http://www.yahoo.co.uk">Yahoo.co.uk</option> <option value="http://www.play.com">play.com</option> </select> <input type="hidden" name="op" value="ds" > <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Browse the web"> </form> </body> </html> END_OF_HTML print $html; [download] That's called the 'here doc' syntax. Perl also has q{} and qq{}: `use strict; use warnings; use 5.012; my $greeting = 'hello'; my $str1 = q{The lady said $greeting to me.}; my $str2 = qq{The lady said $greeting to me}; say $str1; say $str2; --output:-- The lady said $greeting to me. The lady said hello to me.` [download] q{} is an alternative to single quotes, and qq{} is an alternative to double quotes--and you can use any delimiter you want: `say q['hello' {world}]; say qhello ["'] world; --output:-- 'hello' {world} hello ["'] world` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: CGI redirection by alpha (Scribe) on Jan 18, 2013 at 08:31 UTC
Don't use CGI.pm, use a web framework (Dancer, Catalyst, Mojolicious, etc). Don't mix HTML and Perl code, use a templating system.	[reply]