Keep track of running CGI script

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

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Re: Keep track of running CGI script by merlyn (Sage) on Oct 18, 2001 at 19:41 UTC
There's no portable way to get server-push updates. Client pull is the only thing that works consistently (if anything does {grin}). Have you seen my column on that? -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker	[reply]
Re: Keep track of running CGI script by cLive ;-) (Prior) on Oct 18, 2001 at 22:07 UTC
I would: fork database update return page to browser with JS that calls a monitor script - use setTimeout() When database is updating, it sets a percentage mark - eg, 20,000 records, % mark is 200 ($percent_mark = int($total/100); create a temp file. Every $percent_mark records, append a character to the file. Return a marker for the temp file in the cgi response, so the JavaScript call points to correct file: `<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript> setTimeout(30000,"top.display_frame.location.href= 'counter.cgi?tmpfil +e=temp_file_name';"); </SCRIPT>` [download] Then, when you call the counter.cgi file, percentage complete is: `my $percent_complete = stat(temp_file_name)[7];` [download] Return this in your display frame along with JS above. Amend to suit - only my .02 cLive ;-) PS - if it really takes an hour, you might want to set a cookie and tell them to check back later - and use the cookie to identify them in the script.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Keep track of running CGI script by tune (Curate) on Oct 18, 2001 at 21:08 UTC
I did not read The Great Merlyn's article, but I have a simple solution for you. The script that is inserting records into the database should append lines to a HTML-formatted logfile, which should be given out by another script using CGI. The script should use the META REFRESH tag until it finds a special EOF (or whatever) sign in the logfile. It is possibly not a solution however, if you want to see a lot of information of each insert. -- tune	[reply]
Re: Keep track of running CGI script by Anonymous Monk on Oct 18, 2001 at 21:02 UTC
Wouldn't it be better for a lightweight cgi script that forks another script that actually does the work? That script can then email you with the report. That's my prefered method of getting stuff like that done. --Gavin	[reply]
Re: Keep track of running CGI script by Anonymous Monk on Oct 18, 2001 at 22:13 UTC
Hi. Me again. I am currently forking a process like you suggested, but what I want to do is determine the progress of the script by tracking the number of records it has inserted. So I want the "Please be patient" file to display: 45896 of 296390 records inserted I do not know of a simple way to do this when I fork a child process to do the work. The only thing I thought of was to have the child write the current record to a temporary file at some interval and have the "Please be patient" file read the latest record and display it. I was hoping there was an easier way to do it. Thanks for the responses, -jim	[reply]
Re: Re: Keep track of running CGI script by Anonymous Monk on Oct 18, 2001 at 23:09 UTC
I like the suggestion by clive, but I'd modify it slightly. You've got a database so why not get the result from that. Have a cgi script with 2 params, total and begin, total has the number of records we are going to put in the table and begin is how many there was before we started. /status.cgi?total=296390&begin=245 select count(*) from table `printf "%d of %d records inserted", $count - param('begin'), param('total');` -- Gavin	[reply] [d/l]