in reply to Problems with sticky CGI params

hoonz, you can't just print a URL and hope for a redirect, you have to print a properly formatted redirect header.

What your script prints is just the url, "http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/forum.pl". That isn't enought to cause a browser to redirect, it has to look something like "Location: http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/forum.pl\n\n". Headers like these are easy to screw up- browsers care or don't care about capitalization and newlines with no rhyme or reason.

Projekt21 showed you the "correct" way to do this, and his/her version has nothing to do with mod_perl. Using CGI to print headers will save you much time debugging, and will create what you can be sure of are good headers.

-Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from doubletalk.

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Re: Problems with sticky CGI params
by hoonz (Initiate) on Oct 23, 2001 at 17:40 UTC
    Thanks Projekt21 and Hero. I tried the print Location version and it displays a 404 error (page not found)after calling the sub

    The script creates HTML on the fly and does not use HTML templates. Does CGI.pm have to be installed on the server or can I have it in my CGI bin? If I do use it, do I have to re-code everything or can I just do parts?

[reply]

      CGI.pm is part of the standard perl distribution so should already be installed. You can install virtually any module locally but you should not need to. No major recoding is required. Just use what you want, CGI.pm is a huge module and few people use all its many features - at least in the one script. See Use CGI or die; and No excuses about not using CGI.pm

      cheers

      tachyon

      s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

[reply]
      More than likely, CGI.pm is already installed on your system. If for some reason it isn't, yes, it would probably make life a little easier for it to be installed, but you can use a private copy, provided you use lib at the top of your script. For example:
      #!/usr/bin/perl

use lib "/my/module/directory";
use CGI;

      [download]

      Perl will then look in your specified directory for the module before looking through the the default directories in @INC.

      As far as re-coding if you use CGI.pm goes, the short answer is technically, no, you don't have to re-code everything. Others may disagree with me, but personally, I'd be inclined to just use CGI.pm for the parts in question for the time being. Once you get it working, dig into CGI.pm a bit further and see if there are ways to make your script better and more efficient by taking advantage of more of the features of CGI.pm.

      That's my 8**(1/3) cents. Hope that helps.
      ___________________
      Kurt
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      I'm sure you're getting a 404 error because there's either something wrong with your header or your URL is wrong (most likely the latter, IMO). Your redirect header also needs to be the first thing printed from your script.

      To answer your other questions: If you're using perl, you can use CGI in most cases. The CGI perl module is part of all modern perl distributions. And in terms of using "parts" of CGI- yes, you can. Another lovely thing about perl is that it doesn't force you into one way of doing things. Why don't you try the code that Projekt21 suggested and see what shakes out?

      -Any sufficiently advanced technology is
      indistinguishable from doubletalk.

[reply]
        I thought I replied but it seems to have vanished. I did indeed have the URL wrong. I will look into CGI.pm though because it seems to do things a lot easier than what I am used to. Thanks again for all your assistance.
[reply]

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