The World Wide Web is more than a place to put up clever documents and pretty pictures. With a little study and practice, you can offer interactive queries and serve instant information from databases, worked up into colorful graphics. That is what the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) offers.
This book offers a comprehensive explanation of CGI and related techniques for people who hold on to the dream of providing their own information servers on the Web.
Good scripting is not limited to a knowledge of CGI -- you need to know something about other programming tools that organize data and make the output look attractive. Gundavaram starts at the beginning, explaining the value of CGI and how it works, and takes you swiftly into the subtle details of programming. The book offers a comprehensive look at the job of providing information dynamically on the Web.
For most of the examples, this book uses the most common platform (UNIX) and the most popular language (Perl) used for CGI programming today. However, it also introduces the essentials of making CGI work with other platforms and languages. The actual programming techniques are not too different from one platform and language to another; the lessons from this book can be applied to any tools you choose.
Topics include:
* Basic Perl techniques for parsing and output
* Embedding Server Side Includes (SSI)
* Graphics and simple animation
* Forms and magic cookies
* Gateways and SQL processing
* Internet communications
* Examples of games, imagemap manipulation, and other advanced applications
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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| Shishir Gundavaram | Shishir Gundavaram (pronounced she-sheer goon-da-vaar-um) is what he likes to call a "scholar-athlete." On the athletic side, he plays tennis and basketball, but his true passion is running. He started out as a long distance runner, but after numerous injuries became a sprinter. He competes in four events: the 100, 200, 400, and 800 meters, though his favorite event is the glorious one: the 100m. He hopes to compete at the international level, possibly the Olympics, for his native India.
On the scholarly side, Shishir graduated from Boston University with a B.S. in biomedical engineering in May of 1995. For his undergraduate thesis, he developed a Windows application for the Motor Unit Lab of the NeuroMuscular Research Center that allowed researchers to acquire and analyze muscle force output from patients to indirectly observe the electrical activity of muscles. He currently works for Viable Internet Solutions, Inc. (VISO) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, developing applications and tools involving Internet Commerce. |
