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Invoking other programs

Web servers invoke other programs to carry out actions that are not standard functions of the server, such as performing searches and acting upon image map requests. The interface to these programs is defined by the CGI specification and is discussed in detail in Chapter .

Each server has its own set of rules for determining whether a URL refers to a CGI script, including a method of recognizing an initial substring of the URL path component that refers to a script, and a method of locating the program to be invoked. The remainder of the URL is treated as data to be passed to the script.

Spinning the Web by Andrew Ford
© 1995 International Thomson Publishing
© 2002 Andrew Ford and Ford & Mason Ltd
Note: this HTML document was generated in December 1994 directly from the LaTeX source files using LaTeX2HTML. It was formatted into our standard page layout using the Template Toolkit. The document is mainly of historical interest as obviously many of the sites mentioned have long since disappeared.