I'm having trouble to generate the files on the fly by using CGI program. In the cgi program 'download.pl", I use the following code to let the user download the file generated by 'metaStk.pl': 
 
use CGI qw(:standard);
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
system ("/usr/bin/perl metaStk.pl");
print header("text/plain"),
      start_html(),
      (a {href=>'metafile.gz'}, "download data"),
       end_html();

[download]
and start the script from the browser, I get the following result: 
"Tue Jul 16 11:02:02 2002:Exiting metaStk.pl Content-Type: text/plain 
+download data."

[download]
Nothing can be downloaded. The 'metaStk.pl' program is supposed to generate a compressed file "metafile.gz" after execution. If I run the program individually, I'm sure I can get the compressed file. But still I can't get what I want from the cgi program. Any suggestion? thanks in advance! yjin

In reply to system function by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.