On Monday October 22 2007 6:04 pm, less33@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> I'm an engineer and I need to build a web based application for a
> customer to view results of my analysis. To simplify the problem say I
> have a duct with a length, width, and height. I have 'avi' files
> showing the fluid behavior in that duct for various combinations of
> these dimensions. The analysis package I use generates movies with the
> naming convention:
>
> length_width_height.avi
>
> I want to allow the customer to specify the length, width, and height
> and view the appropriate video file. Ideally using some combination of
> radio buttons, drop downs, etc.
>
> I am experienced in Perl and have have worked with simple HTML. I was
> told CGI might be the way to go in developing such an application. My
> question is, does that seem reasonable? I don't want to throw myself
> into learning CGI if I'm going to reach a point a few weeks down the
> road when I realize I should have taken a different approach.
>
> Thaks.
>
> Less
The main reason you want to use CGI.pm is the OO way of decoding
passed
parameters from your HTML forms.
I assume your going to let the client page select or build a
combination of
length , width , and height. Then send it to your Perl script to run your
application via a system call and produce your output AVI file . Then
you
can again use functions in the CGI.pm module to push back the resulting
page. , you could do the same thing without CGI.pm but why would you
want
to re invent the wheel ?
instead of decoding a URL produced by your form manually , you can
create
a new CGI object and then extract the data like so
example:
use CGI;
use strict;
my $q = new CGI;
# assuming length is a input field of some type on the form
my $length = $q->param('length');
then after you built the reply .
open the file and print it to the browser , you will need the correct
mime
type in your header..
take a look at the docs , it's pretty common usage of CGI.
that should get you going
good luck
Greg Jetter
Alaska Internet Solutions
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