Introduction to Perl.

Preparing the template.

• Create a folder on your Mac or PC hard drive called perltour
• Click here to load the text file, template.txt.  Save it to the perltour folder as template.txt.

    Choose File:Save As and select the perltour folder.  Then click the Back button.
• Open the file in your favorite word processor - it should save as plain text.  The one you use to edit HTML code is probably a good choice.
• Replace everything after the exclamation point on the first line with the path to Perl which you located earlier.
  [Windows NT Users: Remove the 1st line.  Your machines use the .pl filename extension to locate Perl, so it is important that you name your files filename.pl and not filename.cgi]
• Locate the 8th line from the end of the document, which reads
open(MAIL, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -t") || die
• Replace the text   /usr/lib/sendmail   with the path to sendmail which you located earlier.
• Locate The text on the next line which reads
"Content-type: text/text\n\nCan't open /usr/lib/sendmail!";
• Replace the text /usr/lib/sendmail with the path to sendmail.
• Save the file.

Creating a test file

• Make a copy of template.txt called test1.cgi (test1.pl on Windows NT)
• Open test1.cgi and locate the line which reads

#************BEGIN BODY*********
• Position the cursor just below that line and type

print "<h1>Hello World</h1>";
• Save test1.cgi

If you do not need to place scripts in a cgi-bin...

• Use your Telnet program to log-in to your Unix server.
• At the Unix command prompt, type mkdir perltour and press [ENTER] to create a folder for your practice files.
• At the Unix command prompt, type chmod a+rx perltour and press [ENTER].
• At the Unix command prompt, type cd perltour and press [ENTER].
• Use your FTP program to upload test1.cgi to the perltour folder on your server.

          NOTE: You should always upload your cgi files as ASCII, not binary.
• At the Unix command prompt, type chmod a+rx test1.cgi and press [ENTER].
• At the Unix command prompt, type ls -l and press [ENTER]

You should see the file, test1.cgi with the privileges, rwxr-xr-x , indicating that anyone can now read and execute this file.
• Launch your web browser, and point it to your home directory URL.  Add /perltour/test1.cgi  to the end of the URL.

If you DO need to place scripts in the cgi-bin...

• Use your Telnet program to log-in to your Unix server.
• Ask your system administrator for the path to the cgi-bin.
• At the Unix command prompt, type cd path to cgi-bin and press [ENTER].
• Use your FTP program to upload test1.cgi to the cgi-bin folder on your server.

          NOTE: You should always upload your cgi files as ASCII, not binary.
• At the Unix command prompt, type chmod a+rx test1.cgi and press [ENTER].
• At the Unix command prompt, type ls -l test1.cgi and press [ENTER]

You should see the file, test1.cgi with the privileges, rwxr-xr-x , indicating that anyone can now read and execute this file.
• Launch your web browser, and point it to your server URL.  Add /cgi-bin/test1.cgi  to the end of the URL.

For example, http://www.myserver.com/cgi-bin/test1.cgi

Hello World should appear in big letters, indicating that the CGI worked properly.  If it did not work, click here to view some of the common troubleshooting techniques.

Congratulations, you just created your first CGI.  Getting used to Unix is the hardest part.  The rest is easy.  Hang on, we're going to have some fun.

You're ready to move on to the scripts