Re: [MacPerl] Getting MacPerl to work with Webstar

[joshg@ola.bc.ca (Josh Gemmell)]

Yaks wrote:
>Wow this mailing list is better than I thought... anyways...here's what
>my question about Web Star is.

>I don't use GET , I always use POST, it's better, I pass through 12
>hidden variables and 5 or 6 regulars and having them all appear on the
>URL is not what I want. So that's not a problem, and the exec is also
>not what I am worried about 'cause my script is a stand alone, it is
>executed by loading it up.
>SO here's what I hope you could explain to me, how do I get webstar to
>execute the perl script.
>I must be missing something, but the damn script is coming up as a text
>file when I access with a browser when it is hosted by WebStar.
>I've set up the same script with Apache for Unix, that was a piece of
>cake, but this definately takes the cake in being cumbersome, and
>frusturating.

Whoops! I forgot to mention the most important part (though it's related to
MacPerl itself, rather than WebSTAR): you have to save your script as type:
"CGI script" and not just plain text, which is what any UNIX Perl script tends
to be. I'm certainly not the expert in this discussion group, so forgive me if
I sound like an ass explaining this, but MacPerl CGI's are a special case
because of Mac's lack of environment variable. MacPerl scripts need to be saved
as a special file type that has Matthias's special glue stuff, allowing your
script to cheat and get "environment variables" from a sytem that doesn't
really have them.

This is *extremely* important. Open the script in MacPerl and save as type "CGI
script". If it's not an option from the save dialog box, you need to go get the
MacPerl tools. They can be found other places, I'm sure, but here is where I
got them: <ftp://ftp.uoknor.edu/mirrors/CPAN/ports/mac/> and they're called
Mac_Perl_513r2_tool.bin 

>I am also not sure if the first line of my script is right, what should
>I have for the "!#"  line, as in is it slashes or colons or what,
>because I developed my script with linux, but it will finaly be housed
>on a Mac, so I am not totaly sure what special Mac things I got to do so
>that Web Star executes this script.
I'm not even sure that MacPerl needs this line. I've put the Mac path to Perl
there and I've also put a generic UNIX path there and both work fine. eg:
"bin:MacPerl ƒ:perl -w" and "/usr/bin/perl -w"

>All I had to do in linux was set the permessions, but in here I am
>totaly confused. Is there something I got to do in the admin part of web
>star to get it to execute MacPerl scripts, so far it thinks its a txt
>file, and oh yah since Web Star thinks the default format is text/html
>than how do I use the reroute command, ie print "Location:
>http://www.somewhere.else.com" because from what I understand I have to
>be talking to the browser to do that.
Check your WebSTAR documentation about the SSI plug-in. It tells you about
allowing Server-Side Includes. It may help you if saving as CGI script doesn't.

>So thanx again if you could help me out with this I'd really appreciate
>it.
No problem.

joshua gemmell


-----------------------------------------------------------------
                       Open Learning Agency
4355 Mathissi Place, Burnaby, B.C. Canada, V5G 4S8 (604) 431-3000


***** Want to unsubscribe from this list?
***** Send mail with body "unsubscribe" to mac-perl-request@iis.ee.ethz.ch