Passing variables to frames

02-24-2005

This is the problem I am having:
I have an index page where I obtain input from the user (for example
their date of birth). This information is passed to Page2. Page2 has
frames. Outside of the frames I can access the user's input. But within
the frames I can't seem to be able to get the value. The date is stored
in a global variable.
Here are snippet's of code:

##Variables
my ($BDAY, $path_info, $script_name);

##Obtaining value from the index page
if ($q->param('birthday')) {
$BDAY = $q->param('birthday');
}

##Creating frame
$path_info = $q->path_info;

##Printing the fames
if (!$path_info) {
&print_frameset($BDAY);
exit 0;
}

##Printing the different frames
&print_html_header; ##HTML headers
&print_content if $path_info=~/content/; ##Left pane with links
&print_expand($BDAY) if $path_info=~/expand/; ##Expanded graph
&print_analyse if $path_info=~/analyse/; ##Options to do
analysis
&print_end; ##End HTML
&print_error;

##Setting up the frames
sub print_frameset {

my $birthday = shift;
$script_name = $q->script_name;

print "<html><head><title>$TITLE</title></head>";
print "<frameset cols='8%,92%'>";
print "<frame src='$script_name/content' name='content'>";
print "<frameset rows='70%,30%'>";
if ($birthday) {
print "<frame src='$script_name/expand' name='expand'>";
print "<frame src='$script_name/analyse' name='analyse'>";
}
else {
print "<frame src='$script_name/error' name='error'>";
}
print "</frameset>";
print "</frameset>";

exit 0;
}

One of the frame's contents:
sub print_expand {

my $birthday = shift;
print $q->h3("My birthday is on: $birthday");

}

In this frame all it prints is "My birthday is on: " it is not printing
the variable.

I cannot figure out why I cannot get the value in the subroutines. I
have checked and the value does get passed from the index page to this
page. I can print it from the global variable $BDAY but not from the
sub routines that form the frames.

I have spent almost 2 days on this and I am starting to go insane!! I
would appreciate any hints/help/suggestions you can provide.

Thanks!
Me

02-24-2005

"divya" <> wrote in news:1109216654.641937.174730
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

> This is the problem I am having:
> I have an index page where I obtain input from the user (for example
> their date of birth). This information is passed to Page2. Page2 has
> frames. Outside of the frames I can access the user's input. But
> within the frames I can't seem to be able to get the value.

You do not have a Perl question. You just do not know HTML & CGI. You
should direct HTML queries to

comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html

and CGI queries to

comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi

> my ($BDAY, $path_info, $script_name);

Declare variables in the smallest applicable scope.

> ##Obtaining value from the index page
> if ($q->param('birthday')) {

$q is not defined at this point.

use strict;
use warnings;

would have told you that.

> $BDAY = $q->param('birthday');
> }
>
> ##Creating frame
> $path_info = $q->path_info;
>
> ##Printing the fames
> if (!$path_info) {
> &print_frameset($BDAY);

Do you know the difference between

&print_frameset($BDAY)

and

print_frameset($BDAY)?

If you do not need the specific effects of using &print_frameset, then
you should not use it. See

perldoc perlsub

for more information.

Sinan

02-24-2005

divya wrote:
> This is the problem I am having:
> I have an index page where I obtain input from the user (for example
> their date of birth). This information is passed to Page2. Page2 has
> frames. Outside of the frames I can access the user's input. But within
> the frames I can't seem to be able to get the value.

Do you realize that the script is called multiple times? The first time
it only prints the frameset file.

> print "<frame src='$script_name/content' name='content'>";

Here the script is called a second time from the frameset file, and as
far as I can see, no parameters are passed to it that time...

--
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl

02-24-2005

"A. Sinan Unur" <> wrote in
news:Xns9606EACCF4560asu1cornelledu@127.0.0.1:

> "divya" <> wrote in news:1109216654.641937.174730
> @z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
>
>> This is the problem I am having:
>> I have an index page where I obtain input from the user (for example
>> their date of birth). This information is passed to Page2. Page2 has
>> frames. Outside of the frames I can access the user's input. But
>> within the frames I can't seem to be able to get the value.
>
> You do not have a Perl question. You just do not know HTML & CGI.

Well, I just re-read this, and realized that it comes accross harsher
than I had intended. What you have is:

> print "<frame src='$script_name/expand' name='expand'>";
> print "<frame src='$script_name/analyse'
name='analyse'>";

These will result in two fresh invocations of your script without the
birthday parameter.

See

<URL: http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-3...EATING_A_SELF-
REFERENCING_URL_THAT_PRESERVES_STATE_INFORMATION:>

and

<URL: http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-
3.05/CGI.pm#WORKING_WITH_FRAMES>

for more information.

Sinan.

02-24-2005

A. Sinan Unur wrote:
>
> <URL: http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-3.05/CGI.pm#CREATING_A_SELF-REFERENCING_URL_THAT_PRESERVES_STATE_INFORMATION:>

It should be noted that CGI.pm's self_url() method translates all
parameters, whether submitted via POST or GET, to a query string. If
there initially were info passed to the script, that you wouldn't like
that the server sends to the user and saves in the access log, it may be
advisable to add the necessary query string manually. In this case it
seems to be:

my $querystring = "?birthday=$BDAY";

(The need for URI escaping should better be considered, of course.)

--
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
Email: http://www.gunnar.cc/cgi-bin/contact.pl

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