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| 55 | <H2><A NAME="SECTION0013210000000000000000"> |
| 56 | 11.2.1 Introduction</A> |
| 57 | </H2> |
| 58 | <A NAME="cgi-intro"></A> |
| 59 | <P> |
| 60 | A CGI script is invoked by an HTTP server, usually to process user |
| 61 | input submitted through an HTML <code><FORM></code> or <code><ISINDEX></code> element. |
| 62 | |
| 63 | <P> |
| 64 | Most often, CGI scripts live in the server's special <span class="file">cgi-bin</span> |
| 65 | directory. The HTTP server places all sorts of information about the |
| 66 | request (such as the client's hostname, the requested URL, the query |
| 67 | string, and lots of other goodies) in the script's shell environment, |
| 68 | executes the script, and sends the script's output back to the client. |
| 69 | |
| 70 | <P> |
| 71 | The script's input is connected to the client too, and sometimes the |
| 72 | form data is read this way; at other times the form data is passed via |
| 73 | the ``query string'' part of the URL. This module is intended |
| 74 | to take care of the different cases and provide a simpler interface to |
| 75 | the Python script. It also provides a number of utilities that help |
| 76 | in debugging scripts, and the latest addition is support for file |
| 77 | uploads from a form (if your browser supports it -- Grail 0.3 and |
| 78 | Netscape 2.0 do). |
| 79 | |
| 80 | <P> |
| 81 | The output of a CGI script should consist of two sections, separated |
| 82 | by a blank line. The first section contains a number of headers, |
| 83 | telling the client what kind of data is following. Python code to |
| 84 | generate a minimal header section looks like this: |
| 85 | |
| 86 | <P> |
| 87 | <div class="verbatim"><pre> |
| 88 | print "Content-Type: text/html" # HTML is following |
| 89 | print # blank line, end of headers |
| 90 | </pre></div> |
| 91 | |
| 92 | <P> |
| 93 | The second section is usually HTML, which allows the client software |
| 94 | to display nicely formatted text with header, in-line images, etc. |
| 95 | Here's Python code that prints a simple piece of HTML: |
| 96 | |
| 97 | <P> |
| 98 | <div class="verbatim"><pre> |
| 99 | print "<TITLE>CGI script output</TITLE>" |
| 100 | print "<H1>This is my first CGI script</H1>" |
| 101 | print "Hello, world!" |
| 102 | </pre></div> |
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| 140 | <span class="release-info">Release 2.4.2, documentation updated on 28 September 2005.</span> |
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