PAB3::ModPerl::Registry - Run Perl5 scripts persistently under Apache and mod_perl inside the PAB3 CGI environment

  ------------
  mod_perl 1.x
  ------------

  # httpd.conf
  PerlModule PAB3::ModPerl::Registry
  Alias /cgi-pab/ /home/httpd/cgi-bin/
  <Location /cgi-pab>
      SetHandler perl-script
      PerlHandler PAB3::ModPerl::Registry
      PerlSendHeader off
      Options +ExecCGI
      # [optional] set a package to run the scripts inside it.
      #   If you are using different packages inside the scripts
      #   all "global" functions and variables will not be available anymore.
      #   Thats because Perl allows only package wide globals.
      #   The option below enables choosing a self defined package without
      #   loosing "global" access to the functions and variables announced here.
      PerlSetVar Package MyPackageName
  </Location>

  ------------
  mod_perl 2.x
  ------------

  # httpd.conf
  PerlModule PAB3::ModPerl::Registry
  Alias /cgi-pab/ /home/httpd/cgi-bin/
  <Location /cgi-pab>
      SetHandler perl-script
      PerlResponseHandler PAB3::ModPerl::Registry
      PerlOptions -ParseHeaders +GlobalRequest +SetupEnv
      Options +ExecCGI
      # [optional] set a package to run the scripts inside it.
      #   If you are using different packages inside the scripts
      #   all "global" functions and variables will not be available anymore.
      #   Thats because Perl allows only package wide globals.
      #   The option below enables choosing a self defined package without
      #   loosing "global" access to the functions and variables announced here.
      PerlSetVar Package MyPackageName
  </Location>

URIs in the form of http://example.com/cgi-pab/test.pl will be compiled as the body of a Perl subroutine and executed. Each child process will compile the subroutine once and store it in memory. It will recompile it whenever the script file (e.g. test.pl in our example) is updated on disk.

Most of PAB3::CGI functions and variables are global to the environment.

Example A:

  # header is not needed
  # header( 'Content-Type: text/html' );
  print '<b>mod_perl is sweet!</b>!';

Example B:

  header( 'Expires: Mon, 11 Jun 1999 06:00:00 GMT' );
  header( 'Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate' );
  header( 'Pragma: no-cache' ); 

  print_r( 'GET:', \%_GET );
  print_r( 'POST:', \%_POST );
  print_r( 'REQUEST:', \%_REQUEST );
  print_r( 'COOKIES:', \%_COOKIE );
  print_r( 'FILES:', \%_FILES );

  if( $_GET{'cmd'} eq 'env' ) {
      print_r( 'ENV:', \%ENV );
  }

setcookie ( $name )

setcookie ( $name, $value )

setcookie ( $name, $value, $expire )

setcookie ( $name, $value, $expire, $path )

setcookie ( $name, $value, $expire, $path, $domain )

setcookie ( $name, $value, $expire, $path, $domain, $secure )

setcookie() defines a cookie to be sent along with the rest of the HTTP headers. Like other headers, cookies must be sent before any other output. If output exists prior to calling this function, setcookie() will fail and return 0. If setcookie() successfully runs, it will return a true value. This does not indicate whether the remote user accepted the cookie. The first parameter $name defines the name of the cookie. The second parameter $value is stored on the clients computer. The third parameter defines the time the cookie expires. This is a Unix timestamp as number of seconds since the epoch. If $expire is undefined, the cookie will expire at the end of the session. The fourth parameter $path defines the path on the server in which the cookie will be available on. If path set to '/', the cookie will be available within the entire domain. If set to '/foo/', the cookie will only be available within the /foo/ directory and all sub- directories such as /foo/bar/ of domain. The default value is '/'. The fifth parameter $domain defines the domain that the cookie is available. To make the cookie available on all subdomains of example.com then you would set it to '.example.com'. The . is not required but makes it compatible with more browsers. Setting it to www.example.com will make the cookie only available in the www subdomain. The sixth parameter indicates that the cookie should only be transmitted over a secure HTTPS connection. When set to TRUE, the cookie will only be set if a secure connection exists. The default is FALSE.

header ( $header )

header ( $header, $overwrite )

header() is used to send raw HTTP headers. See the http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2616 specification for more information on HTTP headers.

Example:

  # We'll be outputting a PDF
  &header( 'Content-type: application/pdf' );
  # It will be called downloaded.pdf
  &header( 'Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="downloaded.pdf"' );
  # Setting transfer encoding to binary
  &header( 'Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary' );
  # Setting content length
  &header( 'Content-Length: ' . ( -s 'original.pdf' ) );
  # Force proxies and clients to disable caching
  &header( 'Pragma: no-cache, must-revalidate' );
  # Content expires now
  &header( 'Expires: 0' );

  # Send the PDF to STDOUT
  open( FH '<original.pdf' );
  binmode( FH );
  while( read( FH, $buf, 8192 ) ) {
      print $buf;
  }
  close( FH );

redirect ( $location )

redirect ( $location, \%params )

redirect ( $location, \%params, $internal )

Redirects the client to $location. Optionally parameters can be defined in \%params. You can use the modperl internal redirect by setting $internal to a TRUE value.

Example:

  &redirect(
      'http://www.myserver.com/myscript',
      {
          'run' => 'login',
      }
  );

%_COOKIE

The hash %_COOKIE contains the cookies provided to the script via HTTP cookies.

%_GET

The hash %_GET contains the arguments provided to the script via GET input mechanismus. When running on the command line, this will also include the @ARGV entries.

%_POST

The hash %_POST contains the arguments provided to the script via POST input mechanismus.

%_REQUEST

The hash %_REQUEST contains the arguments provided to the script via GET and POST input mechanismus. When running on the command line, this will also include the @ARGV entries.

%_FILES

%_FILES is available in a multipart request. It contains the content or the temporary filename, the content-type, remote-filename and the content-length of uploaded files.

The following parameters are defined:

  name          => contains the remote filename
  size          => size of content
  type          => contains the content-type of the uploaded file
  tmp_name      => contains the temporary filename on the server

From the mod_perl developers:

Each httpd child will compile your script into memory and keep it there, whereas CGI will run it once, cleaning out the entire process space. Many times you have heard "always use -w, always use -w and 'use strict'". This is more important here than anywhere else!

One note behind:

In a mod_perl environment several scripts may take access to the same instance of the perl interpreter. All scripts inside this instance are shared. If you plan changing $GLOBAL::V1 in script A it will also be changed in script B.

Christian Mueller.

http://perl.apache.org

the PAB3::CGI manpage

The PAB3::ModPerl::Registry module is free software. You may distribute under the terms of either the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License, as specified in the Perl README file.