«

Greetings,

Could someone point me in the right direction? I'm not a web developer
- just a budding perl dude (who's really a database guy).

I'd like to (at first) read from database (using DBI) and display the
contents on a web page. The trick is I want to do it on the same page
that the action button resides and pop the output of the perl program
into a scrollable box. Nothing fancy - just output some data from a
database call. Eventually I'd like to be able to pass variables from a
form to the waiting perl program

There is a bunch of confusing stuff out there everything from
javascript to embperl and then Mason. And the unspeakable PHP of
course...

Can anyone offer some advice where I should go? (ok - no wisecracks...
<grin>)

thanks,
pg

On Mar 1, 7:42 am, pgodfrin <pgodf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Could someone point me in the right direction? I'm not a web developer
> - just a budding perl dude (who's really a database guy).
>
> I'd like to (at first) read from database (using DBI) and display the
> contents on a web page. The trick is I want to do it on the same page
> that the action button resides and pop the output of the perl program
> into a scrollable box. Nothing fancy - just output some data from a
> database call. Eventually I'd like to be able to pass variables from a
> form to the waiting perl program
>
> There is a bunch of confusing stuff out there everything from
> javascript to embperl and then Mason. And the unspeakable PHP of
> course...
>
> Can anyone offer some advice where I should go? (ok - no wisecracks...
> <grin>)
>
> thanks,
> pg

Have you looked at the CGI module? The synopsis section will give you
a hint on part of what you need. By the time you finish reading the
doc, you should have a pretty good idea where to start. After you've
made an attempt, post back with specific questions and example code
that demonstrates the problem that you're having.
http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-3.33/CGI.pm

On Mar 1, 7:42 am, pgodfrin <pgodf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> Could someone point me in the right direction? I'm not a web developer
> - just a budding perl dude (who's really a database guy).
>
> I'd like to (at first) read from database (using DBI) and display the
> contents on a web page. The trick is I want to do it on the same page
> that the action button resides and pop the output of the perl program
> into a scrollable box. Nothing fancy - just output some data from a
> database call. Eventually I'd like to be able to pass variables from a
> form to the waiting perl program
>
> There is a bunch of confusing stuff out there everything from
> javascript to embperl and then Mason. And the unspeakable PHP of
> course...
>
> Can anyone offer some advice where I should go? (ok - no wisecracks...
> <grin>)
>
> thanks,
> pg

Have you looked at the CGI module? The synopsis section will give you
a hint on part of what you need. By the time you finish reading the
doc, you should have a pretty good idea where to start. After you've
made an attempt, post back with specific questions and example code
that demonstrates the problem that you're having.
http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-3.33/CGI.pm

On Mar 1, 10:42 am, Ron Bergin <r...@i.frys.com> wrote:
> On Mar 1, 7:42 am, pgodfrin <pgodf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Greetings,
>
> > Could someone point me in the right direction? I'm not a web developer
> > - just a budding perl dude (who's really a database guy).
>
> > I'd like to (at first) read from database (using DBI) and display the
> > contents on a web page. The trick is I want to do it on the same page
> > that the action button resides and pop the output of the perl program
> > into a scrollable box. Nothing fancy - just output some data from a
> > database call. Eventually I'd like to be able to pass variables from a
> > form to the waiting perl program
>
> > There is a bunch of confusing stuff out there everything from
> > javascript to embperl and then Mason. And the unspeakable PHP of
> > course...
>
> > Can anyone offer some advice where I should go? (ok - no wisecracks...
> > <grin>)
>
> > thanks,
> > pg
>
> Have you looked at the CGI module? The synopsis section will give you
> a hint on part of what you need. By the time you finish reading the
> doc, you should have a pretty good idea where to start. After you've
> made an attempt, post back with specific questions and example code
> that demonstrates the problem that you're having.http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-3.33/CGI.pm

Yep - I've even run the samples. Perhaps it's a conceptual thing, but
it seems to me that the CGI module is all encompassing. When it's run
- it must produce the entire web page. Which is not what I think I
want.

I'm not having a problem per se, but a conceptual quagmire - I have a
web page, I just want to slap a table or text box in the middle of it
with data from a perl DBI query. Maybe that's not how you do it...
pg

Quoth pgodfrin <>:
> On Mar 1, 10:42 am, Ron Bergin <r...@i.frys.com> wrote:
> > On Mar 1, 7:42 am, pgodfrin <pgodf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I'd like to (at first) read from database (using DBI) and display the
> > > contents on a web page. The trick is I want to do it on the same page
> > > that the action button resides and pop the output of the perl program
> > > into a scrollable box. Nothing fancy - just output some data from a
> > > database call. Eventually I'd like to be able to pass variables from a
> > > form to the waiting perl program
> >
> > Have you looked at the CGI module? The synopsis section will give you
> > a hint on part of what you need. By the time you finish reading the
> > doc, you should have a pretty good idea where to start. After you've
> > made an attempt, post back with specific questions and example code
> > that demonstrates the problem that you're
> having.http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-3.33/CGI.pm
>
> Yep - I've even run the samples. Perhaps it's a conceptual thing, but
> it seems to me that the CGI module is all encompassing. When it's run
> - it must produce the entire web page. Which is not what I think I
> want.

It is, though . Except for modern JS-based techniques like Ajax, which
I would suggest you avoid for now, the way the web works is whole pages
at a time. If you re-read the docs for CGI.pm, you will find it has lots
of methods for re-requesting the current page with something slightly
different, and for preserving your program's state across several
invocations of the 'same' page.

Try this. It's not necessarily a good example of how to use CGI, the
HTML-generation is very simple-minded, and of course passing anything
to 'eval' is just downright stupid; but it should give you an idea of
how such programs work.


#!/usr/bin/perl -T

use strict;
use warnings;
use CGI;

my $Q = CGI->new;
my $url = $Q->url;

print $Q->header;

print <<HTML;
<html>
<head><title>Calculator</title></head>
<body>
<h2>Enter an arithmetic expression:</h2>
<form action="$url" method="POST">
<input name="eval"> <input type="submit" value="Eval">
</form>
HTML

if (my $expr = $Q->param('eval')) {

print <<HTML;
<!-- $expr -->
HTML

if (my ($safe) = $expr =~ m{^([-+/*()\d. ]+)$}) {
my $val = eval $safe;
if (defined $val) {
print <<HTML;
<p>Result: $val.</p>
HTML
}
else {
print <<HTML;
<p style="color: red;">Syntax error: $@</p>
HTML
}
}
else {
print <<HTML;
<p style="color: red;">Bad input.</p>
HTML
}
}

print <<HTML;
</body>
</html>
HTML

__END__

Ben

On Mar 1, 1:29 pm, Ben Morrow <b...@morrow.me.uk> wrote:
> Quoth pgodfrin <pgodf...@gmail.com>:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 1, 10:42 am, Ron Bergin <r...@i.frys.com> wrote:
> > > On Mar 1, 7:42 am, pgodfrin <pgodf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > I'd like to (at first) read from database (using DBI) and display the
> > > > contents on a web page. The trick is I want to do it on the same page
> > > > that the action button resides and pop the output of the perl program
> > > > into a scrollable box. Nothing fancy - just output some data from a
> > > > database call. Eventually I'd like to be able to pass variables from a
> > > > form to the waiting perl program
>
> > > Have you looked at the CGI module? The synopsis section will give you
> > > a hint on part of what you need. By the time you finish reading the
> > > doc, you should have a pretty good idea where to start. After you've
> > > made an attempt, post back with specific questions and example code
> > > that demonstrates the problem that you're
> > having.http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-3.33/CGI.pm
>
> > Yep - I've even run the samples. Perhaps it's a conceptual thing, but
> > it seems to me that the CGI module is all encompassing. When it's run
> > - it must produce the entire web page. Which is not what I think I
> > want.
>
> It is, though . Except for modern JS-based techniques like Ajax, which
> I would suggest you avoid for now, the way the web works is whole pages
> at a time. If you re-read the docs for CGI.pm, you will find it has lots
> of methods for re-requesting the current page with something slightly
> different, and for preserving your program's state across several
> invocations of the 'same' page.
>
> Try this. It's not necessarily a good example of how to use CGI, the
> HTML-generation is very simple-minded, and of course passing anything
> to 'eval' is just downright stupid; but it should give you an idea of
> how such programs work.
>
> #!/usr/bin/perl -T
>
> use strict;
> use warnings;
> use CGI;
>
> my $Q = CGI->new;
> my $url = $Q->url;
>
> print $Q->header;
>
> print <<HTML;
> <html>
> <head><title>Calculator</title></head>
> <body>
> <h2>Enter an arithmetic expression:</h2>
> <form action="$url" method="POST">
> <input name="eval"> <input type="submit" value="Eval">
> </form>
> HTML
>
> if (my $expr = $Q->param('eval')) {
>
> print <<HTML;
> <!-- $expr -->
> HTML
>
> if (my ($safe) = $expr =~ m{^([-+/*()\d. ]+)$}) {
> my $val = eval $safe;
> if (defined $val) {
> print <<HTML;
> <p>Result: $val.</p>
> HTML
> }
> else {
> print <<HTML;
> <p style="color: red;">Syntax error: $@</p>
> HTML
> }
> }
> else {
> print <<HTML;
> <p style="color: red;">Bad input.</p>
> HTML
> }
>
> }
>
> print <<HTML;
> </body>
> </html>
> HTML
>
> __END__
>
> Ben

Hi Ben,
Always good to hear from you. I feel like - forgive the expression -
you're my fairy godmother... <grin>

I will read the docs a little closer - I must have been looking for a
silver bullet and peeked at the doc in a somewhat lazy manner.

thanks, as always,
pg

On Mar 1, 4:36 pm, pgodfrin <pgodf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 1, 1:29 pm, Ben Morrow <b...@morrow.me.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Quoth pgodfrin <pgodf...@gmail.com>:
>
> > > On Mar 1, 10:42 am, Ron Bergin <r...@i.frys.com> wrote:
> > > > On Mar 1, 7:42 am, pgodfrin <pgodf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > I'd like to (at first) read from database (using DBI) and display the
> > > > > contents on a web page. The trick is I want to do it on the same page
> > > > > that the action button resides and pop the output of the perl program
> > > > > into a scrollable box. Nothing fancy - just output some data from a
> > > > > database call. Eventually I'd like to be able to pass variables from a
> > > > > form to the waiting perl program
>
> > > > Have you looked at the CGI module? The synopsis section will give you
> > > > a hint on part of what you need. By the time you finish reading the
> > > > doc, you should have a pretty good idea where to start. After you've
> > > > made an attempt, post back with specific questions and example code
> > > > that demonstrates the problem that you're
> > > having.http://search.cpan.org/~lds/CGI.pm-3.33/CGI.pm
>
> > > Yep - I've even run the samples. Perhaps it's a conceptual thing, but
> > > it seems to me that the CGI module is all encompassing. When it's run
> > > - it must produce the entire web page. Which is not what I think I
> > > want.
>
> > It is, though . Except for modern JS-based techniques like Ajax, which
> > I would suggest you avoid for now, the way the web works is whole pages
> > at a time. If you re-read the docs for CGI.pm, you will find it has lots
> > of methods for re-requesting the current page with something slightly
> > different, and for preserving your program's state across several
> > invocations of the 'same' page.
>
> > Try this. It's not necessarily a good example of how to use CGI, the
> > HTML-generation is very simple-minded, and of course passing anything
> > to 'eval' is just downright stupid; but it should give you an idea of
> > how such programs work.
>
> > #!/usr/bin/perl -T
>
> > use strict;
> > use warnings;
> > use CGI;
>
> > my $Q = CGI->new;
> > my $url = $Q->url;
>
> > print $Q->header;
>
> > print <<HTML;
> > <html>
> > <head><title>Calculator</title></head>
> > <body>
> > <h2>Enter an arithmetic expression:</h2>
> > <form action="$url" method="POST">
> > <input name="eval"> <input type="submit" value="Eval">
> > </form>
> > HTML
>
> > if (my $expr = $Q->param('eval')) {
>
> > print <<HTML;
> > <!-- $expr -->
> > HTML
>
> > if (my ($safe) = $expr =~ m{^([-+/*()\d. ]+)$}) {
> > my $val = eval $safe;
> > if (defined $val) {
> > print <<HTML;
> > <p>Result: $val.</p>
> > HTML
> > }
> > else {
> > print <<HTML;
> > <p style="color: red;">Syntax error: $@</p>
> > HTML
> > }
> > }
> > else {
> > print <<HTML;
> > <p style="color: red;">Bad input.</p>
> > HTML
> > }
>
> > }
>
> > print <<HTML;
> > </body>
> > </html>
> > HTML
>
> > __END__
>
> > Ben
>
> Hi Ben,
> Always good to hear from you. I feel like - forgive the expression -
> you're my fairy godmother... <grin>
>
> I will read the docs a little closer - I must have been looking for a
> silver bullet and peeked at the doc in a somewhat lazy manner.
>
> thanks, as always,
> pg

sim-sala-bim...

I have seen the light...

I think I'm gonna start calling you Yoda...

pg