You need to understand the architecture here.

The browser asks the webserver to do something.

The webserver realizes that to do it it needs to run your script.

The webserver runs your script (passing it information through the CGI protocol).

Your script sends the webserver text.

The webserver returns that text to the browser.

The browser does not know the CGI script is there. While the CGI script may guess there is a browser there, it doesn't really know that, it only knows about the webserver. And the operating system only knows how to help the webserver chatter to the outside world, and that the webserver can run your script.

So the short answer. The browser can do whatever the webserver is willing to do on its behalf, and as long as the webserver can run your script, that includes running your script. Conversely if you don't want the browser to do something (like run the Perl interpreter directly) you need to take that up with the webserver. (Which is why it is a really bad idea to put perl in your cgi-bin.)

In reply to Re (tilly) 2: File permissions by tilly
in thread File permissions by nysus

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.