What is CGI (Common Gateway Interface)?
The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a method that allows you to run programs on a webserver. All web servers allow you to create CGI programs but may use different technologies to implement them.
CGI is the way you make a form do something, like send someone an email, search a database or fill in a guestbook. CGI programs have to be written in a language the web server understands. At BC, CGI's
are typically written in C or perl, the most common scripting language.
If you have written a CGI program in C, you will need to work with the webmaster to compile it on the webserver.
If you have written a perl script you just need to:
- reference the location of Perl on the server,
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
- Use your FTP client to make your script executable
- always end the perl script in .cgi.
Note: You do not need to access a centrally located cgi-bin directory on the web server. You can create your own directory in your work area to contain your CGI scripts.
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For more information on creating CGI scripts, we recommend these sites:
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