Premature end of script headers.

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

Hi all,

I am getting a "premature end of script headers" error. I am using POST and linking to another executable. It is a .cgi file and hence has the necessary following lines,

#!/usr/local/perl -w
use strict;
use CGI;
print header;
[download]

On reading the suggestions from this forum,

I checked permissions. everything fine.
I checked all my if elsif and else. everything ok.
I was working with PICO editor and was already on the server that should run the code.
the code works perfectly well on command prompt.
All output received as required.

I am accessing a DB using this code...

Code tags and formatting added by GrandFather

Comment on Premature end of script headers. Download Code

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Re: Premature end of script headers. by davido (Cardinal) on Jul 26, 2006 at 17:58 UTC
Change the following line: `use CGI;` [download] ...to... `use CGI qw/:standard/;` [download] The problem is that the header isn't getting printed. It's not getting printed because you didn't ask it to be imported. The `qw/:standard/;` does that for you. If you check the error logs you would also see (in the error logs) why the script failed. Strictures will complain: `Unquoted string "header" may clash with future reserved word at mytest +.pl line 8. Name "main::header" used only once: possible typo at mytest.pl line 8. print() on unopened filehandle header at mytest.pl line 8.` [download] Dave	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Premature end of script headers. by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jul 26, 2006 at 17:59 UTC
The first think you should do is get the error message from the error log file. The problem is that you never import `header`. Replace `use CGI;` with `use CGI qw( :standard );` Also, `#!/usr/local/perl -w` should probably be `#!/usr/bin/perl -w` I'm surprised by your claim that it works from the prompt. It shouldn't, and it doesn't on my machine. `Unquoted string "header" may clash with future reserved word at 563851 +.pl line 4. Name "main::header" used only once: possible typo at 563851.pl line 4. print() on unopened filehandle header at 563851.pl line 4.` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
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Re: Premature end of script headers. by Fletch (Bishop) on Jul 26, 2006 at 17:54 UTC
When all else fails, check the server logs. If you don't know where they are, bug the support people or your sysadmin. (Having said that, one bets that `/usr/local/perl` should be `/usr/local/bin/perl` . . . )	[reply]
Re: Premature end of script headers. by Anonymous Monk on Jul 26, 2006 at 18:15 UTC
`Hello All, Thanks for replying, That was just the first few lines. I actual code is running perfectly +well. I did change it from use CGI; to use CGI qw( :standard ); (It was that way and I changed it to just CGI + upon reading a few solutions!) Also, my bad.. it is #!/usr/bin/perl in the program too.. just that I +kept sudo - ing through so many folders looking for the DB.. Any other suggestions are welcome.. Thanks.` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Premature end of script headers. by Anonymous Monk on Jul 27, 2006 at 04:18 UTC
CGI Help Guide has all the suggestions.	[reply]