Perl executing SSI/ include virtual

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

Anyone know how to execute a SSI / shtml directive in a Perl / CGI app? I saw a few posts regauding this, but no one was able to solve it. There is a really good reason for doing it: If you have a template file that contains a SSI tag that you read in, you would need to parse that tag too. This way you can make several modular scripts instead of lots of big CGI programs. A rough example: index.shtml:

<HTML lang=en>
<HEAD><TITLE>Nested shtml Menu Test</TITLE></HEAD><BODY>
<!--#include virtual="/cgi-bin/hello.cgi"-->
</BODY></HTML>
[download]

hello.cgi:

open(DATA,"hello.template");
@template=<DATA>;
close(DATA);
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"
for($a=0;$a<=$#template;$a++){
print $template[$a];
}
[download]

hello.template:

<!--#include virtual="/cgi-bin/nest.cgi"-->
[download]

nest.cgi:

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"
print "<BR><B>Nesty Nest";
[download]

part of the problem I have faced is that custom directives in apache are not obeyed by CGI::SSI so i would like to rule out that module unless someone has some advice on a workaround. ------------- update: I found CGI::SSI_Parse which does almost everything I need. I am gutting the module to work the way i need. Ty for all the help!

Comment on Perl executing SSI/ include virtual Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl executing SSI/ include virtual by epoptai (Curate) on Jul 31, 2004 at 04:05 UTC
Check out CGI::SSI -- perl -MO=Deparse -e"u j t S n a t o e h r , e p l r a h k c r e"	[reply]
Re^2: Perl executing SSI/ include virtual by Avitar (Acolyte) on Aug 18, 2004 at 18:32 UTC
This was my first instinct, however it does not maintain apache directive info very well from my understanding. Then again i don't think it is possible to have it both ways =( I think i will have to make a custom module that will read custom apache directive info and then tie it in with the CGI::SSI module somehow. Also I belive CGI::SSI is broken since it does not appear that you can pass the ssi output to a variable... instead the intent is to force it into a file. please correct me if im wrong. avitar.net	[reply]
Re: Perl executing SSI/ include virtual by beable (Friar) on Jul 31, 2004 at 03:08 UTC
You could try looking at the template for SSI tags, and if there is one, use `do` or `eval` to execute it. Here's an example: `open(DATA,"hello.template"); my @template=<DATA>; close(DATA); print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; for my $line (@template) { # you should probably use an HTML parsing module # here instead of a regex if ($line =~ m/<!--#include virtual="(.*?)"-->/) { my $include = $1; do $include; } else { print $line; } }` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Perl executing SSI/ include virtual by Avitar (Acolyte) on Aug 18, 2004 at 18:44 UTC
ya this is something like i was thinking of =) TY for your help! avitar.net	[reply]
Re: Perl executing SSI/ include virtual by ggg (Scribe) on Aug 02, 2004 at 00:03 UTC
This solution may be going in the wrong direction for you, but perhaps you can adapt something here. I think I remember that the server will parse anything ending with ".shtml". If you rename your `hello.cgi` to `hello.shtml`, it will be handled by the server also. In this way you can nest SSI include commands. I don't think I ever tried this with more that one level of nesting, but it may go deeper. ggg	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Perl executing SSI/ include virtual by Avitar (Acolyte) on Aug 18, 2004 at 18:41 UTC
But there is more to it than nested shtml files... For instance if i want to add a web based mailer/contact form. There would be a page that would be layed out like the following pseudo-Code: Contact.cgi contains ( Header.template contains ( header text, news.cgi output, menu.cgi output) print contact form here Footer.template contains ( footer text, footer_menu.cgi contact_info.cgi ) ) avitar.net	[reply]