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Perl CGI

Course Summary

The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a specification for how a web server invokes and passes data to and from an external program to perform computation. External programs can be written in any language, but Perl has been extended in several ways to make it both efficient to execute and to write these dynamic content generating programs. This class covers how to accomplish the most common tasks such as handling form data and generating dynamic html pages. It also introduces many more complex techniques such as connecting to databases for retrieving and storing information, generating graphics, controlling browser caching, saving state, security, configuring mod_perl and the apache server, and performance issues.

Audience:

Dynamic web content and interactive web pages can be generated with many technologies, yet the CGI interface is still among the most common in use (other than at huge content provider .com type companies). This course will get you started in writing your own CGI programs using Perl.

Prerequisite Knowledge:

The student must comfortable writing in Perl. Preferably to the level of using multi dimensional lists, hashes, and passing references and type globs. The Advanced Perl programming course offered by FAME Computer Education is a good baseline of knowledge.

Course Length:

2 Days.

Course Outline:

Overview of CGI.pm methods and technologies
Generating content
Debugging CGI programs
Handling Form data
Templates and Includes
Security issues, cookies and other stateful techniques
Data persistence and database access
Perl CGI good practices