Hi there
I'm trying to write a cgi script that will run a executable file (securely, with any luck). The executable itself is a bit tricky, because it needs a file (which I have uploaded onto the server) .. but I can't feed the program the file from the command line, I can only give it the name of the file once the program is running .. so normally, if I run the program from the command line i have to use a pipe.
This is what I have come up with so far. Any suggestions much appreciated. 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use CGI;

# eventually the text file will be sent to this excutable via the uplo
+ad script

$file = 'http://www.mywebpage/uploaded_files/file.txt';

# path to program

my $prog = 'http://www.mywebpage/cgi-bin/executableprog';

my $q = new CGI;

my $pid = open PIPE, "-|";
die "Cannot fork $!" unless defined $pid;

unless($pid)
{
    exec PROG or die "Cannot open pipe to executableprog: $!";

    print PROG "$file\n";

    close PROG;
}

[download]
This code should result in a text file being created. I guess I have to determine where that will be placed on the server too? I have only just started playing with cgi and would appreciate any advice thrown my way. Thanks a lot.

In reply to running an executable from a cgi script by Angharad

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