Worik Stanton wrote:
On 16/05/14 21:09, André Warnier wrote:
Maybe you should start here :
https://perl.apache.org/docs/2.0/user/handlers/intro.html#What_are_Handlers_
Thank you. That is very useful
Welcome.
One thing which you cannot complain about apparently, is the number of answers you're
getting. mod_perl advocacy seems alive and well.
Don't hesitate to ask if you have further questions.
Let me also point you to a couple of other sources of information which I have found
useful in learning Apache and mod_perl (and later ever again as a reference):
http://www.modperlcookbook.org/chapters/part3.pdf
(the schema on page 378)
in conjunction with :
https://perl.apache.org/docs/2.0/user/handlers/intro.html#mod_perl_Handlers_Categories
The point is : Apache httpd does not need to be presented anymore : it is the most widely
used webserver on the WWW, and it has a very stable, very optimised code base, and a
plethora of capabilities.
Apache httpd handles each request in a series of well-defined consecutive steps, each step
doing something specific in terms of interpreting the request, possibly transforming it,
checking access permissions, then executing the request in order to generate a certain
content, then cleaning up and logging.
Each of these Apache steps offers "hooks", into which you can attach your own code, to
have it executed by Apache, to modify or replace what the native Apache code would
normally do at that stage.
mod_perl allows you to attach your own perl code to any of these hooks, in a simple and
dynamic way, so that you can - if you wish - take almost complete control of what Apache
does with any given request.
And because this is perl, you can try out something in a matter of minutes, using the vast
CPAN library of perl modules to help you do complex things in a simple way.
And you can leave all the sordid details that you do not want to deal with, to the
efficient and hyper-reliable Apache httpd code base.
That's the real beauty of it.
In addition, because mod_perl embeds a perl interpreter and run-time into Apache itself,
and it pre-compiles everything that you add, it is also fast.
The only drawback is memory usage. But then, if you compare this to java-based
webservers, there is still a comfortable margin.
