The answer to your question will depend on what cgi_app.pl does, which we dont' know.

It looks like it's a wrapper of some kind that's calling other scripts, and in some situations it doesn't know what to call. There's a variable that's supposed to hold the name of the script to execute, and whoever wrote cgi_app.pl gave it the value of the string 'undefined' for situations in which it is undefined (aka undef). This would stop it blowing weird errors and possibly dying, but at the expense that you see this odd, somewhat cryptic, behavior...

The fact that it's calling scripts based on user input fills me with fear that it's not very secure. Make sure that users across the internet cannot execute arbitrary commands.

--Pileofrogs


In reply to Re: invocation of a ghost file by pileofrogs
in thread invocation of a ghost file by arkturuz

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.