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| CGI
(Common Gateway Interface)
is a very common word
when web hosting is
mentioned. Frequently,
but incorrectly, people
usually asked web
hosting providers
if they can run CGI
scripts on their accounts.
What they are actually
asking, albeit indirectly,
is if they can use
CGI to run computer
programs on their
website. |
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| CGI,
in simple terms, is
essentially an intermediary
between the a computer
script and the web
site. It operates
to take the information
from the web page
and pass it to a computer
script (program) and
do whatever the computer
program says to do.
CGI is not a computer
language per se, but
a common language
for different computer
programs to interact
with the web pages
(hence Common Gateway
Interface). |
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| One
of the recognized,
and highly used, computer
program languages
which uses CGI is
Perl. Perl is a high
level computer language
which can manipulate
files, text and perform
system operations
with ease. Perl scripts
are highly used on
the web and quite
frequently you hear
about a very common
perl script known
as "formmail."
A formmail script
is essentially a computer
program written in
Perl which takes information
from a web page and
e-mails the information
to someone. This is
accomplished when
someone fills out
a form on a web page
and presses a button.
The button then starts
the computer program
(formmail) which uses
CGI to get the information
from the webpage and
e-mails the information.
Perl scripts have
been written to do
quite a lot of things
on a web site and
it is a very powerful
language. But, it
is not the only computer
language which can
interact with a web
page. Some others
are ASP, PHP, C, Python,
etc. |
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