Perl CGI: The Happy Path Syllabus
Prepared by Bill Kilgallon,
Bill@KilgallonFamily.com
(AOL Instant Messenger User ID billkilgallon)
Introduction
What this class hopes to accomplish.
Resources for the Perl Student, and where to find them.
Stretching before our first walk down the Happy Path
How to
get and install Perl for your win98 system (for those of us unfortunate
enough to not be running Unix).
How
to get and install the Apache web server your win98 system (for those
of us unfortunate enough to not be running Unix).
How to create a static html page on your new server, and display
it in your browser.
How to create a dynamic perl CGI page on your new server, and display
it in your browser.
The Happy Path Inner Loop, A Simple Web Counter
Problem statement and philosophy discussion.
Basic roles of web browsers and web servers, and the
implications of this on our implementations.
Basic information about your perl scripts, and some good ideas
that every perl program should consider.
Basic information about Perl variables and how they behave.
Basic information about reading and writing files with Perl.
Solution to the inner loop example.
Now the unavoidable facts
We have now come far enough to actually present some of the
general truths of Perl in such a way that you can understand their
implications. Lets present some of the features of the language more
formally.
Perl Constants
Creating
new values within your program that are the same each time the program
starts.
Perl Variables
Storing values in named locations.
Perl Operators
How to do things to variables and keep the results.
Perl Flow Control
How to
ask questions and vary program execution based on the answer.
Back to CGI (Before you forget it)
Simple
HTML constructs, and how to create them using Perl and CGI.
Sending Data to your Server
How to send and maintain client data to your web server.