In the end, I did the most obviuous thing: wrote an html file with tags in it, and substituted values with s///. Thanks a lot, larsen. How is it that I didn't think it myself?

The template:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

<!-- page template for sshttpd.pl -->
<!-- $Id: form.html,v 1.1 2003/08/13 15:53:42 bronto Exp $ -->

<html>
  <head>
    <title>_SERVICE_NAME_ controls</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1 align="center">_SERVICE_NAME_ controls</h1>
    <div align="center">
      <table style="border-width: 2px ; border-style: solid">
        <tr align="center">
          <td>
            <form action="/start" method="post">
              <input type="submit" value=" Start " >
            </form>
          </td>
          <td>
            <form action="/stop" method="post">
              <input type="submit" value=" Stop " >
            </form>
          </td>
          <td>
            <form action="/restart" method="post">
              <input type="submit" value=" Restart " >
            </form>
          </td>
        </tr>

        <tr align="center">
          <td colspan="3">
            <form action="/status" method="post">
              <input type="submit" value="   Update status   " >
            </form>
          </td>
        <tr>

        <tr>
          <td colspan="3" align="center">_MESSAGE_</td>
        <tr>

        <tr>
          <td colspan="3">Status: _SERVICE_NAME_ is _STATUS_</td>
        <tr>
      </table>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

[download]

The subroutine:

sub show_form {
  my $c = shift ;
  my $status   = status() ;
  my $message  = get_message() ;
  my $page ;

  my %subst = ( _SERVICE_NAME_ => $service_name,
        _MESSAGE_      => $message,
        _STATUS_       => $status ) ;

  my $th = IO::File->new ;
  die "FATAL: Cannot open template file $template: $!"
    unless $th->open($template,'r') ;
  foreach my $line ($th->getlines) {
    $line =~ s/(_[A-Z_]+_)/$subst{$1}/g ;
    $page .= $line ;
  }
  $th->close ;

  reset_message ;
  my $resp = HTTP::Response->new ;
  $resp->content($page) ;
  $c->send_response($resp) ;
}

[download]
The very nature of Perl to be like natural language--inconsistant and full of dwim and special cases--makes it impossible to know it all without simply memorizing the documentation (which is not complete or totally correct anyway).
--John M. Dlugosz

In reply to Re: Web page template for an HTTP daemon script by bronto
in thread Web page template for an HTTP daemon script by bronto

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