How to run another program from within a CGI script

[new2cgiperl]

hi,

i'm trying to write a CGI script in perl. in the script i execute another command and capture its output using the backticks as follows:

my @list = `myprogram arg1 arg2`;

i then iterate over the list with a for loop and basically print it out in html so it can be viewed from a browser.

to verify i did this correctly, i ran "perl -w myCgiScript.cgi" which generates the HTML on the unix command line and i have verified that the generated HTML is correct, because first of all, it contains the proper output of the list i am iterating on, and secondly, i copied this generated HTML into a brand new file, and opened it up in IE, and the results are as expected - my list gets displayed on the UI.

However, when I try to reach my CGI script directly with a URL from the IE, I get everything except my list. It is just blank where the list should be. Any ideas as to where I may be going wrong will be helpful. Thanks!

 

[travs69]

put full paths to everything in the system call and verify that it actually works when ran as the user that the httpd is running as (normally

http://www or

something).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Travis - Those who say it cannot be done are usually interrupted by someone else doing it; Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions;

 

[new2cgiperl]

Travis,

Thanks for your help, I tried adding full paths and made sure that my files are world readable and executable.

On the command line, when I do a "perl -w myCgiScript.cgi" my output HTML is correct, just like before.

On the browser though, I now get a "bad file unit number" for my program file...

 

[travs69]

Does your script also have paths to files and such that need a full path?

if you script is in /var/

http://www/cgi-bin/script.pl

(for example) try it running it from /home/user/ by typing in the full path to the script (/var/

http://www/cgi-bin/script.pl).

But you may have things in your path that don't exist in

http://www's

path (if that's who your webserver is running as). Make sure your other script has absolute paths to everything (not ../blah/blah but /path/to/the/real/file). This is a very common thing that happens to everyone when they first start getting into web based scripts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Travis - Those who say it cannot be done are usually interrupted by someone else doing it; Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions;