This section deals with questions related to networking, the
internet, and a few on the web.
MyCGIscriptrunsfromthecommandlinebutnotthebrowser.(500ServerError)
If you can demonstrate that you've read the following FAQs
and that your problem isn't something simple that can be
easily answered, you'll probably receive a courteous and
useful reply to your question if you post it on
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi (if it's something to do
with HTTP, HTML, or the CGI protocols). Questions that
appear to be Perl questions but are really CGI ones that are
posted to comp.lang.perl.misc may not be so well received.
The useful FAQs and related documents are:
CGI FAQ
http://www.webthing.com/tutorials/cgifaq.html
Web FAQ
http://www.boutell.com/faq/
WWW Security FAQ
http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/
HTTP Spec
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Protocols/HTTP/
HTML Spec
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/
CGI Spec
http://www.w3.org/CGI/
CGI Security FAQ
http://www.go2net.com/people/paulp/cgi-security/safe-cgi.txt
HowcanIgetbettererrormessagesfromaCGIprogram?
Use the CGI::Carp module. It replaces `warn' and `die',
plus the normal Carp modules `carp', `croak', and `confess'
functions with more verbose and safer versions. It still
sends them to the normal server error log.
use CGI::Carp;
warn "This is a complaint";
die "But this one is serious";
The following use of CGI::Carp also redirects errors to a
file of your choice, placed in a BEGIN block to catch
compile-time warnings as well:
BEGIN {
use CGI::Carp qw(carpout);
open(LOG, ">>/var/local/cgi-logs/mycgi-log")
or die "Unable to append to mycgi-log: $!\n";
carpout(*LOG);
}
You can even arrange for fatal errors to go back to the
client browser, which is nice for your own debugging, but
might confuse the end user.
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
die "Bad error here";
Even if the error happens before you get the HTTP header
out, the module will try to take care of this to avoid the
dreaded server 500 errors. Normal warnings still go out to
the server error log (or wherever you've sent them with
`carpout') with the application name and date stamp
prepended.
HowdoIremoveHTMLfromastring?
The most correct way (albeit not the fastest) is to use
HTML::Parser from CPAN. Another mostly correct way is to
use HTML::FormatText which not only removes HTML but also
attempts to do a little simple formatting of the resulting
plain text.
Many folks attempt a simple-minded regular expression
approach, like `s/<.*?>//g', but that fails in many cases
because the tags may continue over line breaks, they may
contain quoted angle-brackets, or HTML comment may be
present. Plus folks forget to convert entities, like `<'
for example.
Here's one "simple-minded" approach, that works for most
files:
#!/usr/bin/perl -p0777
s/<(?:[^>'"]*|(['"]).*?\1)*>//gs
If you want a more complete solution, see the 3-stage
striphtml program in
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/striphtml.gz
.
Here are some tricky cases that you should think about when
picking a solution:
<IMG SRC = "foo.gif" ALT = "A > B">
<IMG SRC = "foo.gif"
ALT = "A > B">
<!-- <A comment> -->
<script>if (a<b && a>c)</script>
<# Just data #>
<![INCLUDE CDATA [ >>>>>>>>>>>> ]]>
If HTML comments include other tags, those solutions would
also break on text like this:
<!-- This section commented out.
<B>You can't see me!</B>
-->
HowdoIextractURLs?
A quick but imperfect approach is
#!/usr/bin/perl -n00
# qxurl - [email protected]
print "$2\n" while m{
< \s*
A \s+ HREF \s* = \s* (["']) (.*?) \1
\s* >
}gsix;
This version does not adjust relative URLs, understand
alternate bases, deal with HTML comments, deal with HREF and
NAME attributes in the same tag, understand extra qualifiers
like TARGET, or accept URLs themselves as arguments. It
also runs about 100x faster than a more "complete" solution
using the LWP suite of modules, such as the
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/xurl.gz
program.
HowdoIdownloadafilefromtheuser'smachine?HowdoIopenafileonanothermachine?
In the context of an HTML form, you can use what's known as
multipart/form-data encoding. The CGI.pm module (available
from CPAN) supports this in the start_multipart_form()
method, which isn't the same as the startform() method.
HowdoImakeapop-upmenuinHTML?
Use the <SELECT> and <OPTION> tags. The CGI.pm module
(available from CPAN) supports this widget, as well as many
others, including some that it cleverly synthesizes on its
own.
HowdoIfetchanHTMLfile?
One approach, if you have the lynx text-based HTML browser
installed on your system, is this:
$html_code = `lynx -source $url`;
$text_data = `lynx -dump $url`;
The libwww-perl (LWP) modules from CPAN provide a more
powerful way to do this. They don't require lynx, but like
lynx, can still work through proxies:
# simplest version
use LWP::Simple;
$content = get($URL);
# or print HTML from a URL
use LWP::Simple;
getprint "http://www.linpro.no/lwp/";
# or print ASCII from HTML from a URL
# also need HTML-Tree package from CPAN
use LWP::Simple;
use HTML::Parser;
use HTML::FormatText;
my ($html, $ascii);
$html = get("http://www.perl.com/");
defined $html
or die "Can't fetch HTML from http://www.perl.com/";
$ascii = HTML::FormatText->new->format(parse_html($html));
print $ascii;
HowdoIautomateanHTMLformsubmission?
If you're submitting values using the GET method, create a
URL and encode the form using the `query_form' method:
use LWP::Simple;
use URI::URL;
my $url = url('http://www.perl.com/cgi-bin/cpan_mod');
$url->query_form(module => 'DB_File', readme => 1);
$content = get($url);
If you're using the POST method, create your own user agent
and encode the content appropriately.
use HTTP::Request::Common qw(POST);
use LWP::UserAgent;
$ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
my $req = POST 'http://www.perl.com/cgi-bin/cpan_mod',
[ module => 'DB_File', readme => 1 ];
$content = $ua->request($req)->as_string;
HowdoIdecodeorcreatethose%-encodingsontheweb?
Here's an example of decoding:
$string = "http://altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&what=news&fmt=.&q=%2Bcgi-bin+%2Bperl.exe";
$string =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9]{2})/chr(hex($1))/ge;
Encoding is a bit harder, because you can't just blindly
change all the non-alphanumunder character (`\W') into their
hex escapes. It's important that characters with special
meaning like `/' and `?' not be translated. Probably the
easiest way to get this right is to avoid reinventing the
wheel and just use the URI::Escape module, available from
CPAN.
HowdoIredirecttoanotherpage?
Instead of sending back a `Content-Type' as the headers of
your reply, send back a `Location:' header. Officially this
should be a `URI:' header, so the CGI.pm module (available
from CPAN) sends back both:
Location: http://www.domain.com/newpage
URI: http://www.domain.com/newpage
Note that relative URLs in these headers can cause strange
effects because of "optimizations" that servers do.
$url = "http://www.perl.com/CPAN/";
print "Location: $url\n\n";
exit;
To target a particular frame in a frameset, include the
"Window-target:" in the header.
print <<EOF;
Location: http://www.domain.com/newpage
Window-target: <FrameName>
EOF
To be correct to the spec, each of those virtual newlines
should really be physical `"\015\012"' sequences by the time
you hit the client browser. Except for NPH scripts, though,
that local newline should get translated by your server into
standard form, so you shouldn't have a problem here, even if
you are stuck on MacOS. Everybody else probably won't even
notice.
HowdoIputapasswordonmywebpages?
That depends. You'll need to read the documentation for
your web server, or perhaps check some of the other FAQs
referenced above.
HowdoIeditmy.htpasswdand.htgroupfileswithPerl?
The HTTPD::UserAdmin and HTTPD::GroupAdmin modules provide a
consistent OO interface to these files, regardless of how
they're stored. Databases may be text, dbm, Berkley DB or
any database with a DBI compatible driver. HTTPD::UserAdmin
supports files used by the `Basic' and `Digest'
authentication schemes. Here's an example:
use HTTPD::UserAdmin ();
HTTPD::UserAdmin
->new(DB => "/foo/.htpasswd")
->add($username => $password);
HowdoImakesureuserscan'tentervaluesintoaformthatcausemyCGIscripttodobadthings?
Read the CGI security FAQ, at http://www-
genome.wi.mit.edu/WWW/faqs/www-security-faq.html, and the
Perl/CGI FAQ at http://www.perl.com/CPAN/doc/FAQs/cgi/perl-
cgi-faq.html.
In brief: use tainting (see the perlsec manpage), which
makes sure that data from outside your script (eg, CGI
parameters) are never used in `eval' or `system' calls. In
addition to tainting, never use the single-argument form of
system() or exec(). Instead, supply the command and
arguments as a list, which prevents shell globbing.
HowdoIparseamailheader?
For a quick-and-dirty solution, try this solution derived
from page 222 of the 2nd edition of "Programming Perl":
$/ = '';
$header = <MSG>;
$header =~ s/\n\s+/ /g; # merge continuation lines
%head = ( UNIX_FROM_LINE, split /^([-\w]+):\s*/m, $header );
That solution doesn't do well if, for example, you're trying
to maintain all the Received lines. A more complete
approach is to use the Mail::Header module from CPAN (part
of the MailTools package).
HowdoIdecodeaCGIform?
You use a standard module, probably CGI.pm. Under no
circumstances should you attempt to do so by hand!
You'll see a lot of CGI programs that blindly read from
STDIN the number of bytes equal to CONTENT_LENGTH for POSTs,
or grab QUERY_STRING for decoding GETs. These programs are
very poorly written. They only work sometimes. They
typically forget to check the return value of the read()
system call, which is a cardinal sin. They don't handle
HEAD requests. They don't handle multipart forms used for
file uploads. They don't deal with GET/POST combinations
where query fields are in more than one place. They don't
deal with keywords in the query string.
In short, they're bad hacks. Resist them at all costs.
Please do not be tempted to reinvent the wheel. Instead,
use the CGI.pm or CGI_Lite.pm (available from CPAN), or if
you're trapped in the module-free land of perl1 .. perl4,
you might look into cgi-lib.pl (available from http://cgi-
lib.stanford.edu/cgi-lib/ ).
Make sure you know whether to use a GET or a POST in your
form. GETs should only be used for something that doesn't
update the server. Otherwise you can get mangled databases
and repeated feedback mail messages. The fancy word for
this is ``idempotency''. This simply means that there
should be no difference between making a GET request for a
particular URL once or multiple times. This is because the
HTTP protocol definition says that a GET request may be
cached by the browser, or server, or an intervening proxy.
POST requests cannot be cached, because each request is
independent and matters. Typically, POST requests change or
depend on state on the server (query or update a database,
send mail, or purchase a computer).
HowdoIcheckavalidmailaddress?
You can't, at least, not in real time. Bummer, eh?
Without sending mail to the address and seeing whether
there's a human on the other hand to answer you, you cannot
determine whether a mail address is valid. Even if you
apply the mail header standard, you can have problems,
because there are deliverable addresses that aren't RFC-822
(the mail header standard) compliant, and addresses that
aren't deliverable which are compliant.
Many are tempted to try to eliminate many frequently-invalid
mail addresses with a simple regex, such as
`/^[\w.-]+\@([\w.-]\.)+\w+$/'. It's a very bad idea.
However, this also throws out many valid ones, and says
nothing about potential deliverability, so is not suggested.
Instead, see
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Tom_Christiansen/scripts/ckaddr.gz
, which actually checks against the full RFC spec (except
for nested comments), looks for addresses you may not wish
to accept mail to (say, Bill Clinton or your postmaster),
and then makes sure that the hostname given can be looked up
in the DNS MX records. It's not fast, but it works for what
it tries to do.
Our best advice for verifying a person's mail address is to
have them enter their address twice, just as you normally do
to change a password. This usually weeds out typos. If
both versions match, send mail to that address with a
personal message that looks somewhat like:
Dear [email protected],
Please confirm the mail address you gave us Wed May 6 09:38:41
MDT 1998 by replying to this message. Include the string
"Rumpelstiltskin" in that reply, but spelled in reverse; that is,
start with "Nik...". Once this is done, your confirmed address will
be entered into our records.
If you get the message back and they've followed your
directions, you can be reasonably assured that it's real.
A related strategy that's less open to forgery is to give
them a PIN (personal ID number). Record the address and PIN
(best that it be a random one) for later processing. In the
mail you send, ask them to include the PIN in their reply.
But if it bounces, or the message is included via a
``vacation'' script, it'll be there anyway. So it's best to
ask them to mail back a slight alteration of the PIN, such
as with the characters reversed, one added or subtracted to
each digit, etc.
HowdoIdecodeaMIME/BASE64string?
The MIME-tools package (available from CPAN) handles this
and a lot more. Decoding BASE64 becomes as simple as:
use MIME::base64;
$decoded = decode_base64($encoded);
A more direct approach is to use the unpack() function's "u"
format after minor transliterations:
tr#A-Za-z0-9+/##cd; # remove non-base64 chars
tr#A-Za-z0-9+/# -_#; # convert to uuencoded format
$len = pack("c", 32 + 0.75*length); # compute length byte
print unpack("u", $len . $_); # uudecode and print
HowdoIreturntheuser'smailaddress?
On systems that support getpwuid, the $< variable and the
Sys::Hostname module (which is part of the standard perl
distribution), you can probably try using something like
this:
use Sys::Hostname;
$address = sprintf('%s@%s', scalar getpwuid($<), hostname);
Company policies on mail address can mean that this
generates addresses that the company's mail system will not
accept, so you should ask for users' mail addresses when
this matters. Furthermore, not all systems on which Perl
runs are so forthcoming with this information as is Unix.
The Mail::Util module from CPAN (part of the MailTools
package) provides a mailaddress() function that tries to
guess the mail address of the user. It makes a more
intelligent guess than the code above, using information
given when the module was installed, but it could still be
incorrect. Again, the best way is often just to ask the
user.
HowdoIsendmail?
Use the `sendmail' program directly:
open(SENDMAIL, "|/usr/lib/sendmail -oi -t -odq")
or die "Can't fork for sendmail: $!\n";
print SENDMAIL <<"EOF";
From: User Originating Mail <me\@host>
To: Final Destination <you\@otherhost>
Subject: A relevant subject line
Body of the message goes here after the blank line
in as many lines as you like.
EOF
close(SENDMAIL) or warn "sendmail didn't close nicely";
The -oi option prevents sendmail from interpreting a line
consisting of a single dot as "end of message". The -t
option says to use the headers to decide who to send the
message to, and -odq says to put the message into the queue.
This last option means your message won't be immediately
delivered, so leave it out if you want immediate delivery.
Alternate, less convenient approaches include calling mail
(sometimes called mailx) directly or simply opening up port
25 have having an intimate conversation between just you and
the remote SMTP daemon, probably sendmail.
Or you might be able use the CPAN module Mail::Mailer:
use Mail::Mailer;
$mailer = Mail::Mailer->new();
$mailer->open({ From => $from_address,
To => $to_address,
Subject => $subject,
})
or die "Can't open: $!\n";
print $mailer $body;
$mailer->close();
The Mail::Internet module uses Net::SMTP which is less
Unix-centric than Mail::Mailer, but less reliable. Avoid
raw SMTP commands. There are many reasons to use a mail
transport agent like sendmail. These include queueing, MX
records, and security.
HowdoIreadmail?
While you could use the Mail::Folder module from CPAN (part
of the MailFolder package) or the Mail::Internet module from
CPAN (also part of the MailTools package), often a module is
overkill, though. Here's a mail sorter.
#!/usr/bin/perl
# bysub1 - simple sort by subject
my(@msgs, @sub);
my $msgno = -1;
$/ = ''; # paragraph reads
while (<>) {
if (/^From/m) {
/^Subject:\s*(?:Re:\s*)*(.*)/mi;
$sub[++$msgno] = lc($1) || '';
}
$msgs[$msgno] .= $_;
}
for my $i (sort { $sub[$a] cmp $sub[$b] || $a <=> $b } (0 .. $#msgs)) {
print $msgs[$i];
}
Or more succinctly,
#!/usr/bin/perl -n00
# bysub2 - awkish sort-by-subject
BEGIN { $msgno = -1 }
$sub[++$msgno] = (/^Subject:\s*(?:Re:\s*)*(.*)/mi)[0] if /^From/m;
$msg[$msgno] .= $_;
END { print @msg[ sort { $sub[$a] cmp $sub[$b] || $a <=> $b } (0 .. $#msg) ] }
HowdoIfindoutmyhostname/domainname/IPaddress?
The normal way to find your own hostname is to call the
``hostname`' program. While sometimes expedient, this has
some problems, such as not knowing whether you've got the
canonical name or not. It's one of those tradeoffs of
convenience versus portability.
The Sys::Hostname module (part of the standard perl
distribution) will give you the hostname after which you can
find out the IP address (assuming you have working DNS) with
a gethostbyname() call.
use Socket;
use Sys::Hostname;
my $host = hostname();
my $addr = inet_ntoa(scalar gethostbyname($host || 'localhost'));
Probably the simplest way to learn your DNS domain name is
to grok it out of /etc/resolv.conf, at least under Unix. Of
course, this assumes several things about your resolv.conf
configuration, including that it exists.
(We still need a good DNS domain name-learning method for
non-Unix systems.)
HowdoIfetchanewsarticleortheactivenewsgroups?
Use the Net::NNTP or News::NNTPClient modules, both
available from CPAN. This can make tasks like fetching the
newsgroup list as simple as:
perl -MNews::NNTPClient
-e 'print News::NNTPClient->new->list("newsgroups")'
HowdoIfetch/putanFTPfile?
LWP::Simple (available from CPAN) can fetch but not put.
Net::FTP (also available from CPAN) is more complex but can
put as well as fetch.
HowcanIdoRPCinPerl?
A DCE::RPC module is being developed (but is not yet
available), and will be released as part of the DCE-Perl
package (available from CPAN). The rpcgen suite, available
from CPAN/authors/id/JAKE/, is an RPC stub generator and
includes an RPC::ONC module.
AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1997-1999 Tom Christiansen and Nathan
Torkington. All rights reserved.
When included as part of the Standard Version of Perl, or as
part of its complete documentation whether printed or
otherwise, this work may be distributed only under the terms
of Perl's Artistic License. Any distribution of this file
or derivatives thereof outside of that package require that
special arrangements be made with copyright holder.
Irrespective of its distribution, all code examples in this
file are hereby placed into the public domain. You are
permitted and encouraged to use this code in your own
programs for fun or for profit as you see fit. A simple
comment in the code giving credit would be courteous but is
not required.