Can Perl display/download a file located outside your Web directory?

perleager has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: Can Perl display/download a file located outside your Web directory? by Happy-the-monk (Canon) on Mar 23, 2004 at 03:14 UTC
If you are allowed to, then Perl can. It is more a question of the permissions the user running perl has got (probably the same user as the web server?). Perl is able to open files, if it is allowed to access them and to open them. Sören	[reply]
Re: Can Perl display/download a file located outside your Web directory? by dws (Chancellor) on Mar 23, 2004 at 04:13 UTC
Can Perl display/download a file located outside your Web directory? The answer is generally yes, but it may depend on how you (or you ISP) have configured the web server. What happens when you try?	[reply]
Re: Can Perl display/download a file located outside your Web directory? by pboin (Deacon) on Mar 23, 2004 at 11:41 UTC
First of all, any question that's important enough to ask is important enough to ask well. You need a body with more details. That said, you should be able to have your webserver serve up directories outside it's base directory. Search with terms like 'symlink' and 'alias'. When the day is over though, perl doesn't (and shouldn't) be able to access anything that a normal user can.	[reply]
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