Hello to all.

I'm a new perl user (fresh UNIX class started in Spring), and my final project is due in a couple of weeks. I'm sorry to bother y'all with what is most likely simple questions, but I just don't know what to do because of my lack of experience.

The project asks us to create a time table for the New York subway system so that a user can identify his best choice of travel. The user will log onto an HTML page that I create, choose his starting location and ending location. Once this is done, my HTML page is supposed to send his selected information to my perl program for processing.

My perl program is supposed to figure out what his cheapest OR fastest choice of travel is, then send it back to the HTML page so the user can see where he is supposed to get on, get off, get off again, etc.

The program coding I will most likely not have a problem in. I'm proficient with C++ and Java, but I have never had to use such programs with an HTML environment - I know nothing about HTML.

My professor suggested I used DreamWeaver to generate the HTML page, which I probably can figure out rather quickly - but what I don't understand is how do I send the information to my program for processing. Is CGI on the right track?

I've been looking at the CGI tutorial posted by OVID, and so far it is very very informative and helpful - but I don't know if that's the right thing I should be looking at.

Would someone mind confirming my theory? Or pointing me in the right track? I would really REALLY appreciate it.

Thankyou Monks.

Edited by planetscape - added p tags

In reply to PERL and HTML by vashbrowns

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.