CGI (3)

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NAME

CGI - Handle Common Gateway Interface requests and responses

SYNOPSIS

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI;

    my $q = CGI->new;

    # Process an HTTP request
    my @values  = $q->multi_param('form_field');
    my $value   = $q->param('param_name');

    my $fh      = $q->upload('file_field');

    my $riddle  = $query->cookie('riddle_name');
    my %answers = $query->cookie('answers');

    # Prepare various HTTP responses
    print $q->header();
    print $q->header('application/json');

    my $cookie1 = $q->cookie(
        -name  => 'riddle_name',
        -value => "The Sphynx's Question"
    );

    my $cookie2 = $q->cookie(
        -name  => 'answers',
        -value => \%answers
    );

    print $q->header(
        -type    => 'image/gif',
        -expires => '+3d',
        -cookie  => [ $cookie1,$cookie2 ]
    );

    print $q->redirect('somewhere.else/in/movie/land');

DESCRIPTION

.pm is a stable, complete and mature solution for processing and preparing requests and responses. Major features including processing form submissions, file uploads, reading and writing cookies, query string generation and manipulation, and processing and preparing headers.

.pm performs very well in a vanilla .pm environment and also comes with built-in support for mod_perl and mod_perl2 as well as FastCGI.

It has the benefit of having developed and refined over 20 years with input from dozens of contributors and being deployed on thousands of websites.

.pm was included in the perl distribution from perl v5.4 to v5.20, however is has now been removed from the perl core...

CGI.pm HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE PERL CORE

<perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/commitdiff/e9fa5a80>

If you upgrade to a new version of perl or if you rely on a system or vendor perl and get an updated version of perl through a system update, then you will have to install

.pm yourself with cpan/cpanm/a vendor package/manually. To make this a little easier the CGI::Fast module has been split into its own distribution, meaning you do not need access to a compiler to install .pm

The rationale for this decision is that

.pm is no longer considered good practice for developing web applications, including quick prototyping and small web scripts. There are far better, cleaner, quicker, easier, safer, more scalable, more extensible, more modern alternatives available at this point in time. These will be documented with CGI::Alternatives.

For more discussion on the removal of

.pm from core please see:

<www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl5.porters/2013/05/msg202130.html>

Note that the v4 releases of

.pm will retain back compatibility as much as possible, however you may need to make some minor changes to your code if you are using deprecated methods or some of the more obscure features of the module. If you plan to upgrade to v4.00 and beyond you should read the Changes file for more information and test your code against .pm before deploying it.

HTML Generation functions should no longer be used

All generation functions within .pm are no longer being maintained. Any issues, bugs, or patches will be rejected unless they relate to fundamentally broken page rendering.

The rationale for this is that the

generation functions of .pm are an obfuscation at best and a maintenance nightmare at worst. You should be using a template engine for better separation of concerns. See CGI::Alternatives for an example of using .pm with the Template::Toolkit module.

These functions, and perldoc for them, are considered deprecated, they are no longer being maintained and no fixes or features for them will be accepted. They will, however, continue to exist in

.pm without any deprecation warnings (``soft'' deprecation) so you can continue to use them if you really want to. All documentation for these functions has been moved to CGI::HTML::Functions.

Programming style

There are two styles of programming with .pm, an object-oriented () style and a function-oriented style. You are recommended to use the style as .pm will create an internal default object when the functions are called procedurally and you will not have to worry about method names clashing with perl builtins.

In the object-oriented style you create one or more

objects and then use object methods to create the various elements of the page. Each object starts out with the list of named parameters that were passed to your script by the server. You can modify the objects, save them to a file or database and recreate them. Because each object corresponds to the ``state'' of the script, and because each object's parameter list is independent of the others, this allows you to save the state of the script and restore it later.

For example, using the object oriented style:

    #!/usr/bin/env perl

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI;                             # load CGI routines

    my $q = CGI->new;                    # create new CGI object
    print $q->header;                    # create the HTTP header

In the function-oriented style, there is one default

object that you rarely deal with directly. Instead you just call functions to retrieve parameters, manage cookies, and so on. The following example is identical to above, in terms of output, but uses the function-oriented interface. The main differences are that we now need to import a set of functions into our name space (usually the ``standard'' functions), and we don't need to create the object.

    #!/usr/bin/env perl

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI qw/:standard/;           # load standard CGI routines
    print header();                  # create the HTTP header

The examples in this document mainly use the object-oriented style. See

for important information on function-oriented programming in .pm

Calling

CGI

.pm routines

Most .pm routines accept several arguments, sometimes as many as 20 optional ones! To simplify this interface, all routines use a named argument calling style that looks like this:

    print $q->header(
        -type    => 'image/gif',
        -expires => '+3d',
    );

Each argument name is preceded by a dash. Neither case nor order matters in the argument list: -type, -Type, and -TYPE are all acceptable. In fact, only the first argument needs to begin with a dash. If a dash is present in the first argument

.pm assumes dashes for the subsequent ones.

Several routines are commonly called with just one argument. In the case of these routines you can provide the single argument without an argument name. header() happens to be one of these routines. In this case, the single argument is the document type.

    print $q->header('text/html');

Other such routines are documented below.

Sometimes named arguments expect a scalar, sometimes a reference to an array, and sometimes a reference to a hash. Often, you can pass any type of argument and the routine will do whatever is most appropriate. For example, the param() routine is used to set a

parameter to a single or a multi-valued value. The two cases are shown below:

    $q->param(
        -name  => 'veggie',
        -value => 'tomato',
    );

    $q->param(
        -name  => 'veggie',
        -value => [ qw/tomato tomahto potato potahto/ ],
    );

Many routines will do something useful with a named argument that it doesn't recognize. For example, you can produce non-standard

header fields by providing them as named arguments:

    print $q->header(
        -type            => 'text/html',
        -cost            => 'Three smackers',
        -annoyance_level => 'high',
        -complaints_to   => 'bit bucket',
    );

This will produce the following nonstandard

header:

    HTTP/1.0 200 OK
    Cost: Three smackers
    Annoyance-level: high
    Complaints-to: bit bucket
    Content-type: text/html

Notice the way that underscores are translated automatically into hyphens.

Creating a new query object (object-oriented style)

    my $query = CGI->new;

This will parse the input (from

and methods) and store it into a perl5 object called $query. Note that because the input parsing happens at object instantiation you have to set any package variables that control parsing before you call >new.

Any filehandles from file uploads will have their position reset to the beginning of the file.

Creating a new query object from an input file

    my $query = CGI->new( $input_filehandle );

If you provide a file handle to the new() method, it will read parameters from the file (or

or whatever). The file can be in any of the forms describing below under debugging (i.e. a series of newline delimited TAG=VALUE pairs will work). Conveniently, this type of file is created by the save() method (see below). Multiple records can be saved and restored.

Perl purists will be pleased to know that this syntax accepts references to file handles, or even references to filehandle globs, which is the ``official'' way to pass a filehandle. You can also initialize the

object with a FileHandle or IO::File object.

If you are using the function-oriented interface and want to initialize

state from a file handle, the way to do this is with restore_parameters(). This will (re)initialize the default object from the indicated file handle.

    open( my $in_fh,'<',"test.in") || die "Couldn't open test.in for read: $!";
    restore_parameters( $in_fh );
    close( $in_fh );

You can also initialize the query object from a hash reference:

    my $query = CGI->new( {
        'dinosaur' => 'barney',
        'song'     => 'I love you',
        'friends'  => [ qw/ Jessica George Nancy / ]
    } );

or from a properly formatted, URL-escaped query string:

    my $query = CGI->new('dinosaur=barney&color=purple');

or from a previously existing

object (currently this clones the parameter list, but none of the other object-specific fields, such as autoescaping):

    my $old_query = CGI->new;
    my $new_query = CGI->new($old_query);

To create an empty query, initialize it from an empty string or hash:

    my $empty_query = CGI->new("");

       -or-

    my $empty_query = CGI->new({});

Fetching a list of keywords from the query

    my @keywords = $query->keywords

If the script was invoked as the result of an

search, the parsed keywords can be obtained as an array using the keywords() method.

Fetching the names of all the parameters passed to your script

    my @names = $query->multi_param

    my @names = $query->param

If the script was invoked with a parameter list (e.g. ``name1=value1&name2=value2&name3=value3''), the param() / multi_param() methods will return the parameter names as a list. If the script was invoked as an

script and contains a string without ampersands (e.g. ``value1+value2+value3''), there will be a single parameter named ``keywords'' containing the ``+''-delimited keywords.

The array of parameter names returned will be in the same order as they were submitted by the browser. Usually this order is the same as the order in which the parameters are defined in the form (however, this isn't part of the spec, and so isn't guaranteed).

Fetching the value or values of a single named parameter

    my @values = $query->multi_param('foo');

        -or-

    my $value = $query->param('foo');

Pass the param() / multi_param() method a single argument to fetch the value of the named parameter. If the parameter is multivalued (e.g. from multiple selections in a scrolling list), you can ask to receive an array. Otherwise the method will return a single value.

Warning - calling param() in list context can lead to vulnerabilities if you do not sanitise user input as it is possible to inject other param keys and values into your code. This is why the multi_param() method exists, to make it clear that a list is being returned, note that param() can still be called in list context and will return a list for back compatibility.

The following code is an example of a vulnerability as the call to param will be evaluated in list context and thus possibly inject extra keys and values into the hash:

    my %user_info = (
        id   => 1,
        name => $query->param('name'),
    );

The fix for the above is to force scalar context on the call to ->param by prefixing it with ``scalar''

    name => scalar $query->param('name'),

If you call param() in list context with an argument a warning will be raised by

.pm, you can disable this warning by setting $CGI::LIST_CONTEXT_WARN to 0 or by using the multi_param() method instead

If a value is not given in the query string, as in the queries ``name1=&name2='', it will be returned as an empty string.

If the parameter does not exist at all, then param() will return undef in scalar context, and the empty list in a list context.

Setting the value(s) of a named parameter

    $query->param('foo','an','array','of','values');

This sets the value for the named parameter 'foo' to an array of values. This is one way to change the value of a field

the script has been invoked once before.

param() also recognizes a named parameter style of calling described in more detail later:

    $query->param(
        -name   => 'foo',
        -values => ['an','array','of','values'],
    );

                -or-

    $query->param(
        -name  => 'foo',
        -value => 'the value',
    );

Appending additional values to a named parameter

    $query->append(
        -name   =>'foo',
        -values =>['yet','more','values'],
    );

This adds a value or list of values to the named parameter. The values are appended to the end of the parameter if it already exists. Otherwise the parameter is created. Note that this method only recognizes the named argument calling syntax.

Importing all parameters into a namespace

    $query->import_names('R');

This creates a series of variables in the 'R' namespace. For example, $R::foo, @R:foo. For keyword lists, a variable @R::keywords will appear. If no namespace is given, this method will assume 'Q'.

: don't import anything into 'main'; this is a major security risk!

Variable names are transformed as necessary into legal perl variable names. All non-legal characters are transformed into underscores. If you need to keep the original names, you should use the param() method instead to access variables by name.

In fact, you should probably not use this method at all given the above caveats and security risks.

Deleting a parameter completely

    $query->delete('foo','bar','baz');

This completely clears a list of parameters. It sometimes useful for resetting parameters that you don't want passed down between script invocations.

If you are using the function call interface, use ``Delete()'' instead to avoid conflicts with perl's built-in delete operator.

Deleting all parameters

    $query->delete_all();

This clears the

object completely. It might be useful to ensure that all the defaults are taken when you create a fill-out form.

Use Delete_all() instead if you are using the function call interface.

Handling non-urlencoded arguments

If POSTed data is not of type application/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data, then the POSTed data will not be processed, but instead be returned as-is in a parameter named To retrieve it, use code like this:

    my $data = $query->param('POSTDATA');

Likewise if PUTed data can be retrieved with code like this:

    my $data = $query->param('PUTDATA');

(If you don't know what the preceding means, worry not. It only affects people trying to use

for processing and other specialized tasks)

are also available via upload_hook, and as file uploads via ``-putdata_upload'' option.

Direct access to the parameter list

    $q->param_fetch('address')->[1] = '1313 Mockingbird Lane';
    unshift @{$q->param_fetch(-name=>'address')},'George Munster';

If you need access to the parameter list in a way that isn't covered by the methods given in the previous sections, you can obtain a direct reference to it by calling the param_fetch() method with the name of the parameter. This will return an array reference to the named parameter, which you then can manipulate in any way you like.

You can also use a named argument style using the -name argument.

Fetching the parameter list as a hash

    my $params = $q->Vars;
    print $params->{'address'};
    my @foo = split("\0",$params->{'foo'});
    my %params = $q->Vars;

    use CGI ':cgi-lib';
    my $params = Vars();

Many people want to fetch the entire parameter list as a hash in which the keys are the names of the

parameters, and the values are the parameters' values. The Vars() method does this. Called in a scalar context, it returns the parameter list as a tied hash reference. Changing a key changes the value of the parameter in the underlying parameter list. Called in a list context, it returns the parameter list as an ordinary hash. This allows you to read the contents of the parameter list, but not to change it.

When using this, the thing you must watch out for are multivalued

parameters. Because a hash cannot distinguish between scalar and list context, multivalued parameters will be returned as a packed string, separated by the ``\0'' (null) character. You must split this packed string in order to get at the individual values. This is the convention introduced long ago by Steve Brenner in his cgi-lib.pl module for perl version 4, and may be replaced in future versions with array references.

If you wish to use Vars() as a function, import the :cgi-lib set of function calls (also see the section on CGI-LIB compatibility).

Saving the state of the script to a file

    $query->save(\*FILEHANDLE)

This will write the current state of the form to the provided filehandle. You can read it back in by providing a filehandle to the new() method. Note that the filehandle can be a file, a pipe, or whatever.

The format of the saved file is:

    NAME1=VALUE1
    NAME1=VALUE1'
    NAME2=VALUE2
    NAME3=VALUE3
    =

Both name and value are

escaped. Multi-valued parameters are represented as repeated names. A session record is delimited by a single = symbol. You can write out multiple records and read them back in with several calls to new. You can do this across several sessions by opening the file in append mode, allowing you to create primitive guest books, or to keep a history of users' queries. Here's a short example of creating multiple session records:

    use strict;
    use warnings;
    use CGI;

    open (my $out_fh,'>>','test.out') || die "Can't open test.out: $!";
    my $records = 5;
    for ( 0 .. $records ) {
        my $q = CGI->new;
        $q->param( -name => 'counter',-value => $_ );
        $q->save( $out_fh );
    }
    close( $out_fh );

    # reopen for reading
    open (my $in_fh,'<','test.out') || die "Can't open test.out: $!";
    while (!eof($in_fh)) {
        my $q = CGI->new($in_fh);
        print $q->param('counter'),"\n";
    }

The file format used for save/restore is identical to that used by the Whitehead Genome Center's data exchange format ``Boulderio'', and can be manipulated and even databased using Boulderio utilities. See Boulder for further details.

If you wish to use this method from the function-oriented (non-OO) interface, the exported name for this method is save_parameters().

Retrieving cgi errors

Errors can occur while processing user input, particularly when processing uploaded files. When these errors occur, will stop processing and return an empty parameter list. You can test for the existence and nature of errors using the cgi_error() function. The error messages are formatted as status codes. You can either incorporate the error text into a page, or use it as the value of the status:

    if ( my $error = $q->cgi_error ) {
        print $q->header( -status => $error );
        print "Error: $error";
        exit 0;
    }

When using the function-oriented interface (see the next section), errors may only occur the first time you call param(). Be ready for this!

Using the function-oriented interface

To use the function-oriented interface, you must specify which .pm routines or sets of routines to import into your script's namespace. There is a small overhead associated with this importation, but it isn't much.

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI qw/ list of methods /;

The listed methods will be imported into the current package; you can call them directly without creating a

object first. This example shows how to import the param() and header() methods, and then use them directly:

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI qw/ param header /;
    print header('text/plain');
    my $zipcode = param('zipcode');

More frequently, you'll import common sets of functions by referring to the groups by name. All function sets are preceded with a ``:'' character as in ``:cgi'' (for

protocol handling methods).

Here is a list of the function sets you can import:

:cgi

Import all CGI-handling methods, such as param(), path_info() and the like.

:all

Import all the available methods. For the full list, see the

CGI

.pm code, where the variable %EXPORT_TAGS is defined. (N.B. the :cgi-lib imports will not be included in the :all import, you will have to import :cgi-lib to get those)

Note that in the interests of execution speed

.pm does not use the standard Exporter syntax for specifying load symbols. This may change in the future.

Pragmas

In addition to the function sets, there are a number of pragmas that you can import. Pragmas, which are always preceded by a hyphen, change the way that .pm functions in various ways. Pragmas, function sets, and individual functions can all be imported in the same use() line. For example, the following use statement imports the cgi set of functions and enables debugging mode (pragma -debug):

    use strict;
    use warninigs;
    use CGI qw/ :cgi -debug /;

The current list of pragmas is as follows:

-no_undef_params

This keeps

CGI

.pm from including undef params in the parameter list.

-utf8

This makes

CGI

.pm treat all parameters as text strings rather than binary strings (see perlunitut for the distinction), assuming

UTF-8

for the encoding.

CGI

.pm does the decoding from the

UTF-8

encoded input data, restricting this decoding to input text as distinct from binary upload data which are left untouched. Therefore, a ':utf8' layer must not be used on

STDIN.

If you do not use this option you can manually select which fields are expected to return utf-8 strings and convert them using code like this:

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI;
    use Encode qw/ decode /;

    my $cgi   = CGI->new;
    my $param = $cgi->param('foo');
    $param    = decode( 'UTF-8',$param );

-putdata_upload

Makes "$cgi->param('PUTDATA');" and "$cgi->param('POSTDATA');" act like file uploads named

PUTDATA

and

POSTDATA.

See ``Handling non-urlencoded arguments'' and ``Processing a file upload field''

PUTDATA/POSTDATA

are also available via upload_hook.

-nph

This makes

CGI

.pm produce a header appropriate for an

NPH

(no parsed header) script. You may need to do other things as well to tell the server that the script is

NPH.

See the discussion of

NPH

scripts below.

-newstyle_urls

Separate the name=value pairs in

CGI

parameter query strings with semicolons rather than ampersands. For example:

    ?name=fred;age=24;favorite_color=3

Semicolon-delimited query strings are always accepted, and will be emitted by self_url() and query_string(). newstyle_urls became the default in version 2.64.

-oldstyle_urls

Separate the name=value pairs in

CGI

parameter query strings with ampersands rather than semicolons. This is no longer the default.

-no_debug

This turns off the command-line processing features. If you want to run a

CGI

.pm script from the command line, and you don't want it to read

CGI

parameters from the command line or

STDIN,

then use this pragma:

   use CGI qw/ -no_debug :standard /;

-debug

This turns on full debugging. In addition to reading

CGI

arguments from the command-line processing,

CGI

.pm will pause and try to read arguments from

STDIN,

producing the message ``(offline mode: enter name=value pairs on standard input)'' features.

See the section on debugging for more details.

GENERATING DYNAMIC DOCUMENTS

Most of .pm's functions deal with creating documents on the fly. Generally you will produce the header first, followed by the document itself. .pm provides functions for generating headers of various types.

Each of these functions produces a fragment of

which you can print out directly so that it is processed by the browser, appended to a string, or saved to a file for later use.

Creating a standard http header

Normally the first thing you will do in any script is print out an header. This tells the browser what type of document to expect, and gives other optional information, such as the language, expiration date, and whether to cache the document. The header can also be manipulated for special purposes, such as server push and pay per view pages.

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI;

    my $cgi = CGI->new;

    print $cgi->header;

        -or-

    print $cgi->header('image/gif');

        -or-

    print $cgi->header('text/html','204 No response');

        -or-

    print $cgi->header(
        -type       => 'image/gif',
        -nph        => 1,
        -status     => '402 Payment required',
        -expires    => '+3d',
        -cookie     => $cookie,
        -charset    => 'utf-8',
        -attachment => 'foo.gif',
        -Cost       => '$2.00'
    );

header() returns the Content-type: header. You can provide your own

type if you choose, otherwise it defaults to text/html. An optional second parameter specifies the status code and a human-readable message. For example, you can specify 204, ``No response'' to create a script that tells the browser to do nothing at all. Note that expects the human-readable phase to be there as well as the numeric status code.

The last example shows the named argument style for passing arguments to the

methods using named parameters. Recognized parameters are -type, -status, -expires, and -cookie. Any other named parameters will be stripped of their initial hyphens and turned into header fields, allowing you to specify any header you desire. Internal underscores will be turned into hyphens:

    print $cgi->header( -Content_length => 3002 );

Most browsers will not cache the output from

scripts. Every time the browser reloads the page, the script is invoked anew. You can change this behavior with the -expires parameter. When you specify an absolute or relative expiration interval with this parameter, some browsers and proxy servers will cache the script's output until the indicated expiration date. The following forms are all valid for the -expires field:

    +30s                                  30 seconds from now
    +10m                                  ten minutes from now
    +1h                                   one hour from now
    -1d                                   yesterday (i.e. "ASAP!")
    now                                   immediately
    +3M                                   in three months
    +10y                                  in ten years time
    Thursday, 25-Apr-2018 00:40:33 GMT    at the indicated time & date

The -cookie parameter generates a header that tells the browser to provide a ``magic cookie'' during all subsequent transactions with your script. Some cookies have a special format that includes interesting attributes such as expiration time. Use the cookie() method to create and retrieve session cookies.

The -nph parameter, if set to a true value, will issue the correct headers to work with a

(no-parse-header) script. This is important to use with certain servers that expect all their scripts to be

The -charset parameter can be used to control the character set sent to the browser. If not provided, defaults to

As a side effect, this sets the charset() method as well. Note that the default being may not make sense for all content types, e.g.:

    Content-Type: image/gif; charset=ISO-8859-1

In the above case you need to pass -charset => '' to prevent the default being used.

The -attachment parameter can be used to turn the page into an attachment. Instead of displaying the page, some browsers will prompt the user to save it to disk. The value of the argument is the suggested name for the saved file. In order for this to work, you may have to set the -type to ``application/octet-stream''.

The -p3p parameter will add a P3P tag to the outgoing header. The parameter can be an arrayref or a space-delimited string of P3P tags. For example:

    print $cgi->header( -p3p => [ qw/ CAO DSP LAW CURa / ] );
    print $cgi->header( -p3p => 'CAO DSP LAW CURa' );

In either case, the outgoing header will be formatted as:

    P3P: policyref="/w3c/p3p.xml" cp="CAO DSP LAW CURa"

.pm will accept valid multi-line headers when each line is separated with a value (``\r\n'' on most platforms) followed by at least one space. For example:

    print $cgi->header( -ingredients => "ham\r\n\seggs\r\n\sbacon" );

Invalid multi-line header input will trigger in an exception. When multi-line headers are received,

.pm will always output them back as a single line, according to the folding rules of the newlines will be removed, while the white space remains.

Generating a redirection header

    print $q->redirect( 'somewhere.else/in/movie/land );

Sometimes you don't want to produce a document yourself, but simply redirect the browser elsewhere, perhaps choosing a

based on the time of day or the identity of the user.

The redirect() method redirects the browser to a different

If you use redirection like this, you should not print out a header as well.

You should always use full URLs (including the http: or ftp: part) in redirection requests. Relative URLs will not work correctly.

You can also use named arguments:

    print $q->redirect(
        -uri    => 'somewhere.else/in/movie/land
        -nph    => 1,
        -status => '301 Moved Permanently'
    );

All names arguments recognized by header() are also recognized by redirect(). However, most

headers, including those generated by -cookie and -target, are ignored by the browser.

The -nph parameter, if set to a true value, will issue the correct headers to work with a

(no-parse-header) script. This is important to use with certain servers, such as Microsoft which expect all their scripts to be

The -status parameter will set the status of the redirect.

defines several different possible redirection status codes, and the default if not specified is 302, which means ``moved temporarily.'' You may change the status to another status code if you wish.

Note that the human-readable phrase is also expected to be present to conform with

section 6.1.

Creating a self-referencing url that preserves state information

    my $myself = $q->self_url;
    print qq(<a href="$myself">I'm talking to myself.</a>);

self_url() will return a

that, when selected, will re-invoke this script with all its state information intact. This is most useful when you want to jump around within the document using internal anchors but you don't want to disrupt the current contents of the form(s). Something like this will do the trick:

     my $myself = $q->self_url;
     print "<a href=\"$myself#table1\">See table 1</a>";
     print "<a href=\"$myself#table2\">See table 2</a>";
     print "<a href=\"$myself#yourself\">See for yourself</a>";

If you want more control over what's returned, using the url() method instead.

You can also retrieve a query string representation of the current object state with query_string():

    my $the_string = $q->query_string();

The behavior of calling query_string is currently undefined when the

method is something other than

If you want to retrieved the query string as set in the webserver, namely the environment variable, you can call env_query_string()

Obtaining the script's url

    my $full_url      = url();
    my $full_url      = url( -full =>1 );  # alternative syntax
    my $relative_url  = url( -relative => 1 );
    my $absolute_url  = url( -absolute =>1 );
    my $url_with_path = url( -path_info => 1 );
    my $url_path_qry  = url( -path_info => 1, -query =>1 );
    my $netloc        = url( -base => 1 );

url() returns the script's

in a variety of formats. Called without any arguments, it returns the full form of the including host name and port number

    your.host.com/path/to/script.cgi

You can modify this format with the following named arguments:

-absolute

If true, produce an absolute

URL,

e.g.

    /path/to/script.cgi

-relative

Produce a relative

URL.

This is useful if you want to re-invoke your script with different parameters. For example:

    script.cgi

-full

Produce the full

URL,

exactly as if called without any arguments. This overrides the -relative and -absolute arguments.

-path (-path_info)

Append the additional path information to the

URL.

This can be combined with -full, -absolute or -relative. -path_info is provided as a synonym.

-query (-query_string)

Append the query string to the

URL.

This can be combined with -full, -absolute or -relative. -query_string is provided as a synonym.

-base

Generate just the protocol and net location, as in www.foo.com:8000

-rewrite

If Apache's mod_rewrite is turned on, then the script name and path info probably won't match the request that the user sent. Set -rewrite => 1 (default) to return URLs that match what the user sent (the original request

URI

). Set -rewrite => 0 to return URLs that match the

URL

after the mod_rewrite rules have run.

Mixing post and url parameters

    my $color = url_param('color');

It is possible for a script to receive

parameters in the as well as in the fill-out form by creating a form that POSTs to a containing a query string (a ``?'' mark followed by arguments). The param() method will always return the contents of the POSTed fill-out form, ignoring the 's query string. To retrieve parameters, call the url_param() method. Use it in the same way as param(). The main difference is that it allows you to read the parameters, but not set them.

Under no circumstances will the contents of the

query string interfere with similarly-named parameters in POSTed forms. If you try to mix a query string with a form submitted with the method, the results will not be what you expect.

Processing a file upload field

Basics

When the form is processed, you can retrieve an IO::File compatible handle for a file upload field like this:

    use autodie;

    # undef may be returned if it's not a valid file handle
    if ( my $io_handle = $q->upload('field_name') ) {
        open ( my $out_file,'>>','/usr/local/web/users/feedback' );
        while ( my $bytesread = $io_handle->read($buffer,1024) ) {
            print $out_file $buffer;
        }
    }

In a list context, upload() will return an array of filehandles. This makes it possible to process forms that use the same name for multiple upload fields.

If you want the entered file name for the file, you can just call param():

    my $filename = $q->param('field_name');

Different browsers will return slightly different things for the name. Some browsers return the filename only. Others return the full path to the file, using the path conventions of the user's machine. Regardless, the name returned is always the name of the file on the user's machine, and is unrelated to the name of the temporary file that

.pm creates during upload spooling (see below).

When a file is uploaded the browser usually sends along some information along with it in the format of headers. The information usually includes the

content type. To retrieve this information, call uploadInfo(). It returns a reference to a hash containing all the document headers.

    my $filehandle = $q->upload( 'uploaded_file' );
    my $type       = $q->uploadInfo( $filehandle )->{'Content-Type'};
    if ( $type ne 'text/html' ) {
        die "HTML FILES ONLY!";
    }

Note that you must use ->upload or ->param to get the file-handle to pass into uploadInfo as internally this is represented as a File::Temp object (which is what will be returned by ->upload or ->param). When using ->Vars you will get the literal filename rather than the File::Temp object, which will not return anything when passed to uploadInfo. So don't use ->Vars.

If you are using a machine that recognizes ``text'' and ``binary'' data modes, be sure to understand when and how to use them (see the Camel book). Otherwise you may find that binary files are corrupted during file uploads.

Accessing the temp files directly

When processing an uploaded file,

.pm creates a temporary file on your hard disk and passes you a file handle to that file. After you are finished with the file handle, .pm unlinks (deletes) the temporary file. If you need to you can access the temporary file directly. You can access the temp file for a file upload by passing the file name to the tmpFileName() method:

    my $filehandle  = $query->upload( 'uploaded_file' );
    my $tmpfilename = $query->tmpFileName( $filehandle );

As with ->uploadInfo, using the reference returned by ->upload or ->param is preferred, although unlike ->uploadInfo, plain filenames also work if possible for backwards compatibility.

The temporary file will be deleted automatically when your program exits unless you manually rename it or set $CGI::UNLINK_TMP_FILES to 0. On some operating systems (such as Windows

), you will need to close the temporary file's filehandle before your program exits. Otherwise the attempt to delete the temporary file will fail.

Changes in temporary file handling (v4.05+)

.pm had its temporary file handling significantly refactored, this logic is now all deferred to File::Temp (which is wrapped in a compatibility object, CGI::File::Temp - ). As a consequence the variable has been removed along with deprecation of the private_tempfiles routine and complete removal of the CGITempFile package. The $CGITempFile::TMPDIRECTORY is no longer used to set the temp directory, refer to the perldoc for File::Temp if you want to override the default settings in that package (the env variable is still available on some platforms). For Windows platforms the temporary directory order remains as before: > > ( > ) so if you have any of these in use in existing scripts they should still work.

The Fh package still exists but does nothing, the CGI::File::Temp class is a subclass of both File::Temp and the empty Fh package, so if you have any code that checks that the filehandle isa Fh this should still work.

When you get the internal file handle you will receive a File::Temp object, this should be transparent as File::Temp isa IO::Handle and isa IO::Seekable meaning it behaves as previously. If you are doing anything out of the ordinary with regards to temp files you should test your code before deploying this update and refer to the File::Temp documentation for more information.

Handling interrupted file uploads

There are occasionally problems involving parsing the uploaded file. This usually happens when the user presses ``Stop'' before the upload is finished. In this case,

.pm will return undef for the name of the uploaded file and set cgi_error() to the string ``400 Bad request (malformed multipart )''. This error message is designed so that you can incorporate it into a status code to be sent to the browser. Example:

    my $file = $q->upload( 'uploaded_file' );
    if ( !$file && $q->cgi_error ) {
        print $q->header( -status => $q->cgi_error );
        exit 0;
    }

Progress bars for file uploads and avoiding temp files

.pm gives you low-level access to file upload management through a file upload hook. You can use this feature to completely turn off the temp file storage of file uploads, or potentially write your own file upload progress meter.

This is much like the

facility available in Apache::Request, with the exception that the first argument to the callback is an Apache::Upload object, here it's the remote filename.

    my $q = CGI->new( \&hook [,$data [,$use_tempfile]] );

    sub hook {
        my ( $filename, $buffer, $bytes_read, $data ) = @_;
        print "Read $bytes_read bytes of $filename\n";
    }

The $data field is optional; it lets you pass configuration information (e.g. a database handle) to your hook callback.

The $use_tempfile field is a flag that lets you turn on and off

.pm's use of a temporary disk-based file during file upload. If you set this to a value (default true) then $q->param('uploaded_file') will no longer work, and the only way to get at the uploaded data is via the hook you provide.

If using the function-oriented interface, call the CGI::upload_hook() method before calling param() or any other

functions:

    CGI::upload_hook( \&hook [,$data [,$use_tempfile]] );

This method is not exported by default. You will have to import it explicitly if you wish to use it without the

prefix.

Troubleshooting file uploads on Windows

If you are using

.pm on a Windows platform and find that binary files get slightly larger when uploaded but that text files remain the same, then you have forgotten to activate binary mode on the output filehandle. Be sure to call binmode() on any handle that you create to write the uploaded file to disk.

Older ways to process file uploads

This section is here for completeness. if you are building a new application with

.pm, you can skip it.

The original way to process file uploads with

.pm was to use param(). The value it returns has a dual nature as both a file name and a lightweight filehandle. This dual nature is problematic if you following the recommended practice of having "use strict" in your code. perl will complain when you try to use a string as a filehandle. More seriously, it is possible for the remote user to type garbage into the upload field, in which case what you get from param() is not a filehandle at all, but a string.

To solve this problem the upload() method was added, which always returns a lightweight filehandle. This generally works well, but will have trouble interoperating with some other modules because the file handle is not derived from IO::File. So that brings us to current recommendation given above, which is to call the handle() method on the file handle returned by upload(). That upgrades the handle to an IO::File. It's a big win for compatibility for a small penalty of loading IO::File the first time you call it.

HTTP COOKIES

.pm has several methods that support cookies.

A cookie is a name=value pair much like the named parameters in a

query string. scripts create one or more cookies and send them to the browser in the header. The browser maintains a list of cookies that belong to a particular Web server, and returns them to the script during subsequent interactions.

In addition to the required name=value pair, each cookie has several optional attributes:

1. an expiration time

This is a time/date string (in a special

GMT

format) that indicates when a cookie expires. The cookie will be saved and returned to your script until this expiration date is reached if the user exits the browser and restarts it. If an expiration date isn't specified, the cookie will remain active until the user quits the browser.

2. a domain

This is a partial or complete domain name for which the cookie is valid. The browser will return the cookie to any host that matches the partial domain name. For example, if you specify a domain name of ``.capricorn.com'', then the browser will return the cookie to Web servers running on any of the machines ``www.capricorn.com'', ``www2.capricorn.com'', ``feckless.capricorn.com'', etc. Domain names must contain at least two periods to prevent attempts to match on top level domains like ``.edu''. If no domain is specified, then the browser will only return the cookie to servers on the host the cookie originated from.

3. a path

If you provide a cookie path attribute, the browser will check it against your script's

URL

before returning the cookie. For example, if you specify the path ``/cgi-bin'', then the cookie will be returned to each of the scripts ``/cgi-bin/tally.pl'', ``/cgi-bin/order.pl'', and ``/cgi-bin/customer_service/complain.pl'', but not to the script ``/cgi-private/site_admin.pl''. By default, path is set to ``/'', which causes the cookie to be sent to any

CGI

script on your site.

4. a secure flag

If the ``secure'' attribute is set, the cookie will only be sent to your script if the

CGI

request is occurring on a secure channel, such as

SSL.

The interface to

cookies is the cookie() method:

    my $cookie = $q->cookie(
        -name    => 'sessionID',
        -value   => 'xyzzy',
        -expires => '+1h',
        -path    => '/cgi-bin/database',
        -domain  => '.capricorn.org',
        -secure  => 1
    );

    print $q->header( -cookie => $cookie );

cookie() creates a new cookie. Its parameters include:

-name

The name of the cookie (required). This can be any string at all. Although browsers limit their cookie names to non-whitespace alphanumeric characters,

CGI

.pm removes this restriction by escaping and unescaping cookies behind the scenes.

-value

The value of the cookie. This can be any scalar value, array reference, or even hash reference. For example, you can store an entire hash into a cookie this way:

    my $cookie = $q->cookie(
        -name  => 'family information',
        -value => \%childrens_ages
    );

-path

The optional partial path for which this cookie will be valid, as described above.

-domain

The optional partial domain for which this cookie will be valid, as described above.

-expires

The optional expiration date for this cookie. The format is as described in the section on the header() method:

    "+1h"  one hour from now

-secure

If set to true, this cookie will only be used within a secure

SSL

session.

The cookie created by cookie() must be incorporated into the

header within the string returned by the header() method:

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI;

    my $q      = CGI->new;
    my $cookie = ...
    print $q->header( -cookie => $cookie );

To create multiple cookies, give header() an array reference:

    my $cookie1 = $q->cookie(
        -name  => 'riddle_name',
        -value => "The Sphynx's Question"
    );

    my $cookie2 = $q->cookie(
        -name  => 'answers',
        -value => \%answers
    );

    print $q->header( -cookie => [ $cookie1,$cookie2 ] );

To retrieve a cookie, request it by name by calling cookie() method without the -value parameter. This example uses the object-oriented form:

    my $riddle  = $q->cookie('riddle_name');
    my %answers = $query->cookie('answers');

Cookies created with a single scalar value, such as the ``riddle_name'' cookie, will be returned in that form. Cookies with array and hash values can also be retrieved.

The cookie and

namespaces are separate. If you have a parameter named 'answers' and a cookie named 'answers', the values retrieved by param() and cookie() are independent of each other. However, it's simple to turn a parameter into a cookie, and vice-versa:

    # turn a CGI parameter into a cookie
    my $c = cookie( -name => 'answers',-value => [$q->param('answers')] );
    # vice-versa
    $q->param( -name => 'answers',-value => [ $q->cookie('answers')] );

If you call cookie() without any parameters, it will return a list of the names of all cookies passed to your script:

    my @cookies = $q->cookie();

See the cookie.cgi example script for some ideas on how to use cookies effectively.

DEBUGGING

If you are running the script from the command line or in the perl debugger, you can pass the script a list of keywords or parameter=value pairs on the command line or from standard input (you don't have to worry about tricking your script into reading from environment variables). You can pass keywords like this:

    your_script.pl keyword1 keyword2 keyword3

or this:

   your_script.pl keyword1+keyword2+keyword3

or this:

    your_script.pl name1=value1 name2=value2

or this:

    your_script.pl name1=value1&name2=value2

To turn off this feature, use the -no_debug pragma.

To test the

method, you may enable full debugging with the -debug pragma. This will allow you to feed newline-delimited name=value pairs to the script on standard input.

When debugging, you can use quotes and backslashes to escape characters in the familiar shell manner, letting you place spaces and other funny characters in your parameter=value pairs:

    your_script.pl "name1='I am a long value'" "name2=two\ words"

Finally, you can set the path info for the script by prefixing the first name/value parameter with the path followed by a question mark (?):

    your_script.pl /your/path/here?name1=value1&name2=value2

FETCHING ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

Some of the more useful environment variables can be fetched through this interface. The methods are as follows:

Accept()

Return a list of

MIME

types that the remote browser accepts. If you give this method a single argument corresponding to a

MIME

type, as in Accept('text/html'), it will return a floating point value corresponding to the browser's preference for this type from 0.0 (don't want) to 1.0. Glob types (e.g. text/*) in the browser's accept list are handled correctly.

Note that the capitalization changed between version 2.43 and 2.44 in order to avoid conflict with perl's accept() function.

raw_cookie()

Returns the

HTTP_COOKIE

variable. Cookies have a special format, and this method call just returns the raw form (?cookie dough). See cookie() for ways of setting and retrieving cooked cookies.

Called with no parameters, raw_cookie() returns the packed cookie structure. You can separate it into individual cookies by splitting on the character sequence ``; ''. Called with the name of a cookie, retrieves the unescaped form of the cookie. You can use the regular cookie() method to get the names, or use the raw_fetch() method from the CGI::Cookie module.

env_query_string()

Returns the

QUERY_STRING

variable, note that this is the original value as set in the environment by the webserver and (possibly) not the same value as returned by query_string(), which represents the object state

user_agent()

Returns the

HTTP_USER_AGENT

variable. If you give this method a single argument, it will attempt to pattern match on it, allowing you to do something like user_agent(Mozilla);

path_info()

Returns additional path information from the script

URL. E.G.

fetching /cgi-bin/your_script/additional/stuff will result in path_info() returning ``/additional/stuff''.

NOTE:

The Microsoft Internet Information Server is broken with respect to additional path information. If you use the perl

DLL

library, the

IIS

server will attempt to execute the additional path information as a perl script. If you use the ordinary file associations mapping, the path information will be present in the environment, but incorrect. The best thing to do is to avoid using additional path information in

CGI

scripts destined for use with

IIS. A

best attempt has been made to make

CGI

.pm do the right thing.

path_translated()

As per path_info() but returns the additional path information translated into a physical path, e.g. ``/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/additional/stuff''.

The Microsoft

IIS

is broken with respect to the translated path as well.

remote_host()

Returns either the remote host name or

IP

address if the former is unavailable.

remote_ident()

Returns the name of the remote user (as returned by identd) or undef if not set

remote_addr()

Returns the remote host

IP

address, or 127.0.0.1 if the address is unavailable.

request_uri()

Returns the interpreted pathname of the requested document or

CGI

(relative to the document root). Or undef if not set.

script_name()

Return the script name as a partial

URL,

for self-referring scripts.

referer()

Return the

URL

of the page the browser was viewing prior to fetching your script.

auth_type()

Return the authorization/verification method in use for this script, if any.

server_name()

Returns the name of the server, usually the machine's host name.

virtual_host()

When using virtual hosts, returns the name of the host that the browser attempted to contact

server_port()

Return the port that the server is listening on.

server_protocol()

Returns the protocol and revision of the incoming request, or defaults to

HTTP/1.0

if this is not set

virtual_port()

Like server_port() except that it takes virtual hosts into account. Use this when running with virtual hosts.

server_software()

Returns the server software and version number.

remote_user()

Return the authorization/verification name used for user verification, if this script is protected.

user_name()

Attempt to obtain the remote user's name, using a variety of different techniques. May not work in all browsers.

request_method()

Returns the method used to access your script, usually one of '

POST

', '

GET

' or '

HEAD

'.

content_type()

Returns the content_type of data submitted in a

POST,

generally multipart/form-data or application/x-www-form-urlencoded

http()

Called with no arguments returns the list of

HTTP

environment variables, including such things as

HTTP_USER_AGENT, HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE,

and

HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET,

corresponding to the like-named

HTTP

header fields in the request. Called with the name of an

HTTP

header field, returns its value. Capitalization and the use of hyphens versus underscores are not significant.

For example, all three of these examples are equivalent:

    my $requested_language = $q->http('Accept-language');

    my $requested_language = $q->http('Accept_language');

    my $requested_language = $q->http('HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE');

https()

The same as http(), but operates on the

HTTPS

environment variables present when the

SSL

protocol is in effect. Can be used to determine whether

SSL

is turned on.

USING NPH SCRIPTS

or ``no-parsed-header'', scripts bypass the server completely by sending the complete header directly to the browser. This has slight performance benefits, but is of most use for taking advantage of extensions that are not directly supported by your server, such as server push and headers.

Servers use a variety of conventions for designating

scripts as Many Unix servers look at the beginning of the script's name for the prefix ``nph-''. The Macintosh WebSTAR server and Microsoft's Internet Information Server, in contrast, try to decide whether a program is an script by examining the first line of script output.

.pm supports scripts with a special mode. When in this mode, .pm will output the necessary extra header information when the header() and redirect() methods are called.

The Microsoft Internet Information Server requires

mode. As of version 2.30, .pm will automatically detect when the script is running under and put itself into this mode. You do not need to do this manually, although it won't hurt anything if you do.

In the use statement

Simply add the ``-nph'' pragma to the list of symbols to be imported into your script:

    use CGI qw(:standard -nph)

By calling the nph() method:

Call nph() with a non-zero parameter at any point after using

CGI

.pm in your program.

    CGI->nph(1)

By using -nph parameters

in the header() and redirect() statements:

    print header(-nph=>1);

SERVER PUSH

.pm provides four simple functions for producing multipart documents of the type needed to implement server push. These functions were graciously provided by Ed Jordan <ed@fidalgo.net>. To import these into your namespace, you must import the ``:push'' set. You are also advised to put the script into mode and to set $| to 1 to avoid buffering problems.

Here is a simple script that demonstrates server push:

    #!/usr/bin/env perl

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI qw/:push -nph/;

    $| = 1;
    print multipart_init( -boundary=>'----here we go!' );
    for (0 .. 4) {
        print multipart_start( -type=>'text/plain' ),
            "The current time is ",scalar( localtime ),"\n";
        if ($_ < 4) {
            print multipart_end();
        } else {
            print multipart_final();
        }
        sleep 1;
    }

This script initializes server push by calling multipart_init(). It then enters a loop in which it begins a new multipart section by calling multipart_start(), prints the current local time, and ends a multipart section with multipart_end(). It then sleeps a second, and begins again. On the final iteration, it ends the multipart section with multipart_final() rather than with multipart_end().

multipart_init()

    multipart_init( -boundary => $boundary, -charset => $charset );

Initialize the multipart system. The -boundary argument specifies what

MIME

boundary string to use to separate parts of the document. If not provided,

CGI

.pm chooses a reasonable boundary for you.

The -charset provides the character set, if not provided this will default to

ISO-8859-1

multipart_start()

    multipart_start( -type => $type, -charset => $charset );

Start a new part of the multipart document using the specified

MIME

type and charset. If not specified, text/html

ISO-8859-1

is assumed.

multipart_end()

    multipart_end()

End a part. You must remember to call multipart_end() once for each multipart_start(), except at the end of the last part of the multipart document when multipart_final() should be called instead of multipart_end().

multipart_final()

    multipart_final()

End all parts. You should call multipart_final() rather than multipart_end() at the end of the last part of the multipart document.

Users interested in server push applications should also have a look at the CGI::Push module.

AVOIDING DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACKS

A potential problem with .pm is that, by default, it attempts to process form POSTings no matter how large they are. A wily hacker could attack your site by sending a script a huge of many gigabytes. .pm will attempt to read the entire into a variable, growing hugely in size until it runs out of memory. While the script attempts to allocate the memory the system may slow down dramatically. This is a form of denial of service attack.

Another possible attack is for the remote user to force

.pm to accept a huge file upload. .pm will accept the upload and store it in a temporary directory even if your script doesn't expect to receive an uploaded file. .pm will delete the file automatically when it terminates, but in the meantime the remote user may have filled up the server's disk space, causing problems for other programs.

The best way to avoid denial of service attacks is to limit the amount of memory,

time and disk space that scripts can use. Some Web servers come with built-in facilities to accomplish this. In other cases, you can use the shell limit or ulimit commands to put ceilings on resource usage.

.pm also has some simple built-in protections against denial of service attacks, but you must activate them before you can use them. These take the form of two global variables in the name space:

$CGI::POST_MAX

If set to a non-negative integer, this variable puts a ceiling on the size of POSTings, in bytes. If

CGI

.pm detects a

POST

that is greater than the ceiling, it will immediately exit with an error message. This value will affect both ordinary POSTs and multipart POSTs, meaning that it limits the maximum size of file uploads as well. You should set this to a reasonably high value, such as 10 megabytes.

$CGI::DISABLE_UPLOADS

If set to a non-zero value, this will disable file uploads completely. Other fill-out form values will work as usual.

To use these variables, set the variable at the top of the script, right after the ``use'' statement:

    #!/usr/bin/env perl

    use strict;
    use warnings;

    use CGI;

    $CGI::POST_MAX = 1024 * 1024 * 10;  # max 10MB posts
    $CGI::DISABLE_UPLOADS = 1;          # no uploads

An attempt to send a

larger than $POST_MAX bytes will cause param() to return an empty parameter list. You can test for this event by checking cgi_error(), either after you create the object or, if you are using the function-oriented interface, call <param()> for the first time. If the was intercepted, then cgi_error() will return the message ``413 too large''.

This error message is actually defined by the

protocol, and is designed to be returned to the browser as the script's status code. For example:

    my $uploaded_file = $q->param('upload');
    if ( !$uploaded_file && $q->cgi_error() ) {
        print $q->header( -status => $q->cgi_error() );
        exit 0;
   }

However it isn't clear that any browser currently knows what to do with this status code. It might be better just to create a page that warns the user of the problem.

COMPATIBILITY WITH CGI-LIB.PL

To make it easier to port existing programs that use cgi-lib.pl the compatibility routine ``ReadParse'' is provided. Porting is simple:

    require "cgi-lib.pl";
    &ReadParse;
    print "The value of the antique is $in{antique}.\n";

    use CGI;
    CGI::ReadParse();
    print "The value of the antique is $in{antique}.\n";

.pm's ReadParse() routine creates a tied variable named %in, which can be accessed to obtain the query variables. Like ReadParse, you can also provide your own variable. Infrequently used features of ReadParse, such as the creation of @in and $in variables, are not supported.

Once you use ReadParse, you can retrieve the query object itself this way:

    my $q = $in{CGI};

This allows you to start using the more interesting features of

.pm without rewriting your old scripts from scratch.

An even simpler way to mix cgi-lib calls with

.pm calls is to import both the ":cgi-lib" and ":standard" method:

    use CGI qw(:cgi-lib :standard);
    &ReadParse;
    print "The price of your purchase is $in{price}.\n";
    print textfield(-name=>'price', -default=>'$1.99');

Cgi-lib functions that are available in

CGI

.pm

In compatibility mode, the following cgi-lib.pl functions are available for your use:

    ReadParse()
    PrintHeader()
    SplitParam()
    MethGet()
    MethPost()

LICENSE

The .pm distribution is copyright 1995-2007, Lincoln D. Stein. It is distributed under and the Artistic License 2.0. It is currently maintained by Lee Johnson () with help from many contributors.

CREDITS

Thanks very much to:

Mark Stosberg (mark@stosberg.com)

Matt Heffron (heffron@falstaff.css.beckman.com)

James Taylor (james.taylor@srs.gov)

Scott Anguish <sanguish@digifix.com>

Mike Jewell (mlj3u@virginia.edu)

Timothy Shimmin (tes@kbs.citri.edu.au)

Joergen Haegg (jh@axis.se)

Laurent Delfosse (delfosse@delfosse.com)

Richard Resnick (applepi1@aol.com)

Craig Bishop (csb@barwonwater.vic.gov.au)

Tony Curtis (tc@vcpc.univie.ac.at)

Tim Bunce (Tim.Bunce@ig.co.uk)

Tom Christiansen (tchrist@convex.com)

Andreas Koenig (k@franz.ww.TU-Berlin.DE)

Tim MacKenzie (Tim.MacKenzie@fulcrum.com.au)

Kevin B. Hendricks (kbhend@dogwood.tyler.wm.edu)

Stephen Dahmen (joyfire@inxpress.net)

Ed Jordan (ed@fidalgo.net)

David Alan Pisoni (david@cnation.com)

Doug MacEachern (dougm@opengroup.org)

Robin Houston (robin@oneworld.org)

...and many many more...

for suggestions and bug fixes.

BUGS

Address bug reports and comments to: <github.com/leejo/CGI.pm/issues>

See the <github.com/leejo/CGI.pm/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md> file for information on raising issues and contributing

The original bug tracker can be found at: <rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Queue=CGI.pm>

SEE ALSO

CGI::Carp - provides Carp implementation tailored to the environment.

CGI::Fast - supports running

applications under FastCGI