where art thou file?

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

I am trying to get a cgi script working but it's unable to find a file it requires.

The cgi script is located in my /public_html/cgi-bin (of course) and my file in a directory called /public_html/uploadedfiles

I don't understand why my script is not finding the file ... it is certainly there and at that location.

Code follows

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
#
#
#

# ensure all fatals go to browser during debugging and set-up
# comment this BEGIN block out on production code for security
BEGIN {
    $|=1;
    print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
    use CGI::Carp('fatalsToBrowser');
}

use strict;
use warnings;

use diagnostics;
use CGI qw/:standard/;

#print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"

#
# Upload directory for files
#
my $upload_dir = "/home/me/uploaded_files";

my $file = "file.txt";

#
# Path to PDB processing program
#

my $program = "/home/me/programs/program";

#
# Get the name of the file to process from the command line
# Later we will get this from the input to the CGI program
#

#my $input_file = shift;

my $input_file = "$file";

#die "Usage: $0 INPUT_FILENAME\n" unless $input_file;

#die "Can't process '$upload_dir/$input_file': File does not exist!\n"
  #  unless -f "$upload_dir/$input_file";
#
# Create web page...
#
print 
    start_html("Processing PDB file '$input_file' ..."), $/,
    h1("Processing PDB file '$input_file' ..."), $/;
    
chdir $upload_dir;

die "Usage: $0 INPUT_FILENAME\n" unless $input_file;

die "Can't process '$upload_dir/$input_file': File does not exist!\n"
    unless -f "$upload_dir/$input_file";

open (PROG, "| $program") || die "Can't run '$program': $!\n";
print PROG "$input_file\n";
close(PROG);

print p("OK .. working thus far"), end_html();
[download]

Any help much appreciated

Comment on where art thou file? Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: where art thou file? by liverpole (Monsignor) on Feb 28, 2006 at 12:11 UTC
... my file in a directory called /public_html/uploadedfiles Are you sure that's where your file is supposed to be? According to your code: `# # Upload directory for files # my $upload_dir = "/home/me/uploaded_files"; # ... chdir $upload_dir; die "Usage: $0 INPUT_FILENAME\n" unless $input_file; die "Can't process '$upload_dir/$input_file': File does not exist!\n" unless -f "$upload_dir/$input_file";` [download] So I'm not seeing any place where you reference /public_html/uploadfiles (or even just uploadfiles) in your program. Maybe you have a symbolic link from /home/me to /public_html, and you meant uploadedfiles (without the underscore) in the program? And what do the logs say? Try running tail -100f /var/log/httpd/error_log in a separate window before you run it, for extra information. @ARGV=split//,"/:L"; map{print substr crypt($_,ord pop),2,3}qw"PerlyouC READPIPE provides"	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: where art thou file? by Angharad (Pilgrim) on Feb 28, 2006 at 12:28 UTC
hi, thanks for your reply. /home/me etc refers to the local directory system on the server. I'm utterly confused by the public_html concept to be honest, because apaprently you are not supposed to include that in your path. On my server ... it says /public_html/uploadedfiles. I think that corresponds to /home/me/uploadedfiles for some reason. If anyone could explain why tat is to me, I would appreciate that also :) The log files say that the file isn't found by the way.	[reply]
Re^3: where art thou file? by dorward (Curate) on Feb 28, 2006 at 13:48 UTC
Generally speaking (i.e. in every case I've encountered) /home/USERNAME/public_html corresponds to either http://www.example.com/~USERNAME/ or http://USERNAME.example.com/. Thus you should not include "public_html" in your URL path. It is still a real directory on the filesystem so it should appear when referencing the filesystem path. Inside the Perl script it is a filesystem path, but outside the Perl script (i.e. in any HTML your script outputs) then it is a URL path.	[reply]
Re^4: where art thou file? by Angharad (Pilgrim) on Feb 28, 2006 at 14:42 UTC
Re^3: where art thou file? by liverpole (Monsignor) on Feb 28, 2006 at 12:42 UTC
Hi again, Try looking at the configuration file for httpd. It's someplace like /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf I am by no means an expert at html/cgi (although I'm trying to learn!), but I know that httpd.conf is where things like Apache pathname configuration are handled. Basically, you can define which directory will be the starting point for a given URL pointing to your server. Note that the starting point may differ depending on whether you're executing a script (CGI) or simply fetching a file. So if you have /public_html configured as the "starting point", an URL which references your server will access files relative to the /public_html directory. You may also want to read some of the Apache/http documention (try a Google for "configuring html", or something similar). Good luck! @ARGV=split//,"/:L"; map{print substr crypt($_,ord pop),2,3}qw"PerlyouC READPIPE provides"	[reply]
Re: where art thou file? by idle (Friar) on Feb 28, 2006 at 12:27 UTC
And what the error say? Can't find which one file?	[reply]
Re^2: where art thou file? by Angharad (Pilgrim) on Feb 28, 2006 at 12:31 UTC
The one that is assigned to the variable file near the top of the script. It's located in the uploadedfiles directory	[reply]