Passing values between Apache SSIs

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

Hi,

I dont know if this is a more Apache-related question but . . .

In the shopping cart I made recently, I have an HTML wit Server Side Includes like

<BODY>
<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/sessions.cgi"-->
<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/cart.cgi"-->
</BODY>
[download]

where sessions.cgi is creating sessions if its NOT set already and cart.cgi is my program dealing with shopping cart. In some initial cases I need the session ID generated by sessions.cgi in cart.cgi, in the same request. Is there a way to pass values between SSIs?

Cheers !

--VC
Gods Own Country...

Comment on Passing values between Apache SSIs Select or Download Code

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Re: Passing values between Apache SSIs by moritz (Cardinal) on Jun 02, 2008 at 09:23 UTC
You can't pass values from the first to the second script, because the first doesn't ever call the second script. Your best chance is to ensure that the user already has a cookie, then set up the session in `session.cgi`, store it in the DB, and retrieve it in `cart.cgi`. That probably defeats the purpose of the separation of the two scripts. So instead of using two SSIs, call a dispatch script that calls both scripts and passes the values from the first to the second.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Passing values between Apache SSIs by atemon (Chaplain) on Jun 02, 2008 at 09:46 UTC
Hi, Thanks for your help. But I am using more SSIs in the HTML, where each SSIs are separated by loads of HTML. So I cant call them from a despatch script. Also, I have more HTMLs which have `session.cgi`, along with SSIs other than `cart.cgi`. I kept them together for demonstration purpose only. I will try setting cookies from `session.cgi` Cheers ! --VC Gods Own Country...	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Passing values between Apache SSIs by moritz (Cardinal) on Jun 02, 2008 at 09:58 UTC
I will try setting cookies from session.cgi That won't work, because there are no new HTTP requests between the call to `session.cgi` and the other scripts. You can only access the session in all those scripts if the user already has a cookie. Your application sounds if it's hight time to switch to a decent template system (and perhaps a MVC framework) instead of HTML pages intermingled with SSI. I built pages like that (HTML + lots of SSI) in the past, and I found that the complexity of passing information around outweighs the seemingly simplicity that it offers at first. Your question demonstrates that HTML+SSI isn't very flexible when used like this, and it's really painful to extend and scale inflexible systems.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Passing values between Apache SSIs by Anonymous Monk on Jun 02, 2008 at 08:30 UTC
I dont know if this is a more Apache-related question but . . . Yes you do, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Includes	[reply]
Re^2: Passing values between Apache SSIs by atemon (Chaplain) on Jun 02, 2008 at 08:55 UTC
Hi, I went through these documentations already. I didn't get any idea about how to do. Any monk, from their experience, can help me I hope. Cheers ! --VC Gods Own Country...	[reply] [d/l]