Setup:
    - Windows XP box with IIS (Internet Information Server)
      running

[download]
Jeff Zucker wrote this great cgi script that given a "mod" query string parameter equal to the module you want the perldocs for, it will display the perldocs for that module in the browser. I renamed Jeff's script "perldoc_test.pl" on my Windows XP box, and added some code in an effort to be able to get "perldoc perl" output in the browser - I've highlighted the code I added : 
------------------------------------------------------------------
#!perl
# by Jeff Zucker
#
# may be freely modified and distributred under the same terms as Perl
+ itself
#
use strict;
use CGI;
use CGI::Carp qw/fatalsToBrowser/;
use File::Find;
use Pod::Html;

my $q = new CGI;
my $modname = $q->param('mod') || '';
show_form();
if( $modname =~ /^perl/ ) { show_perl($modname); } ### I (HM) added th
+is ###
elsif( $modname =~ m#/# ) { show_dir($modname); }
else { show_pod( $modname ); }

### I (HM) added this subroutine ###
sub show_perl {
    my $text = `C:\\Perl\\bin\\perldoc.bat perl`;
    print <<END_HTML;
<body>
    <h2>Testing222</h2>
    <pre>\$text=[$text]</pre>
</body>
</html>
END_HTML

} # end show_perl

sub show_form {
    print 
        $q->header, 
        $q->start_html(-title=>'POD FINDER'), 
        $q->start_form, 
        $q->b("Module Name : "),
        $q->textfield(-name=>'mod'),
        $q->end_form,
        $q->end_html,
    ;
}

sub show_pod {
    my $modname = shift;
    return unless $modname;
    $modname =~ s#::#/#g;
    my $filename = findmod( $modname );
    pod2html("--quiet","--infile=$filename") if $filename;
}

sub show_dir {
    my $dir = shift;
    $dir =~ s#/$##g;
    my $scriptname = $q->script_name;
    for(@INC){
        my $fdir = "$_/$dir";
        if( -d $fdir ) { 
            opendir(D,$fdir) || die $!;
            my @files = readdir D;
            closedir D;
            for(@files) {
                next unless /(.*)\.pm$/;
                print "<a href='$scriptname?mod=$dir\:\:$1'>$dir\:\:$1
+</a><br>";
            }
        }
    }
    return '';
}

sub findmod {
    my $mod = shift;
    if (-e $mod ) { return $mod; }
    for(@INC){
        my $modname = "$_/$mod.pm";
        if( -e $modname ) { return $modname; }
    }
    return '';
}
__END__
------------------------------------------------------------------

[download]
When I run that with this URL: 
         http://localhost/Test_Perl/perldoc_test.pl?mod=perl

[download]
trying to basically get "perldoc perl" output to the browser, I get this output displayed in the browser: 
Module Name :  perl
Testing222
$text=[]

[download]
As you can see there is no output captured from the 
     my $text = `C:\\Perl\\bin\\perldoc.bat perl`;

[download]
command. And no error appears. I have more experience with Apache on Red Hat Linux - there if the webserver had a permissions problem executing a command, it would appear in the apache error.log file, but I can't locate any such animal on Windows. Is there an error log for IIS?

When I run that command in a perl command line script it runs fine. Must be something with my IIS setup, but I don't know what. I've tried adding the webserver anonymous user to the security profile for C:\Perl\bin\perldoc.bat, but that didn't have any effect. Can anyone else get this working on their Windows XP box with IIS(Internet Information Server) webserver? Any help or insight is appreciated.

In reply to perldoc.cgi - problem on WinXP by hmerrill

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.