The Bottom Line
One of the best books available for learning to write CGI scripts in Perl.
Pros
- Explains what a CGI is and how to create one
- Examples make it easy to see how it works
- Excellent coverage of regular expressions
Cons
- Not very in-depth
- Requires some programming knowledge
Description
- Teaches how to configure your server to run CGI scripts.
- Perl examples can be transcribed and used on your site.
- There is a section on environment variables and how to use them.
- Quick overview of HTML forms and how to write CGIs to manage them.
- Learn how to create dynamic pages using CGI scripts.
- Includes code for: a guestbook, counter, survey, quiz, calendar, clock, and more.
- Even has a section that explains how to use cookies with CGI.
- The chapter on testing is invaluable.
Guide Review - CGI Programming by Shishir Gundavaram
I have had this book ever since it came out, and I still open it all the time. It really isn't a reference manual, but it has a huge amount of information. In fact, until recently, there weren't many other books that exaplained how to use Perl (or any other programming language) to write CGI scripts. Although this book is written with Perl examples, it can be easily converted to use other languages. When I first started writing CGIs, I wrote only in C and I used this book. I think I get the most use out of the testing chapter. CGI programming can be very frustrating, as it is very hard to debug - but this book helps a lot.
