I am ready to release a small module I've tentantively tagged
'CGI::PathInfo' which allows the use of the CGI environment variable
'PATH_INFO' in a fashion similar to the GET/HEAD method processing of
'QUERY_STRING' by CGI.pm or CGI::Minimal. The intent is to aid
CGI/Mod_Perl authors who need to generate dynamic content that must still
be search engine friendly and possibly have 'pretty' URLs that don't
betray their programatic origins too plainly ('stealth' CGI).
Here is the man page for it. Does the name choice seem appropriate?
If no one screams in the next day or so, I will upload it under this
name to CPAN.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME
CGI::PathInfo - A lightweight CGI processing package for using
PATH_INFO like GET method form parameters
SYNOPSIS
use CGI::PathInfo;
my $path_info = CGI::PathInfo->new;
my ($form_field_value) = $path_info->param('some_field_name');
DESCRIPTION
Provides a micro-weight equivalent to the CPAN CGI.pm module
that permits the use of the Apache CGI environment variable
'PATH_INFO' as a functional equivalent to the GET method
'QUERY_STRING'.
Rather than attempt to address every possible need of a CGI
programmer, it provides the _minimum_ functions needed for CGI
such as parameter decoding, URL encoding and decoding.
The parameters decoding interface is somewhat compatible with
the CGI.pm module. No provision is made for generating HTTP or
HTML on your behalf - you are expected to be conversant with how
to put together any HTML or HTTP you need.
CHANGES
1.00 21 July 2000 - Initial public release.
METHODS
new;
Creates a new instance of the CGI::PathInfo object and
decodes any 'PATH_INFO' parameters.
Example:
use CGI::PathInfo;
my $path_info = CGI::PathInfo->new;
The defaults are for the parameters to be seperated by '/'
characters with name/value pairs linked by '-' and with
leading or trailing '/' characters ignored.
Ex:
$ENV{'PATH_INFO'} = '/yesterday-monday/tomorrow-wednesday';
decodes to
'yesterday' -> 'monday'
'tomorrow' -> 'wednesday'
Values are read using the 'param' method.
Any of the defaults may be overridden by specifying them in
the invokation of 'new'.
Example:
my $path_info = CGI::PathInfo->new({ Eq => '=',
SplitOn => '&',
});
It is probably a Bad Idea (tm) to set the Eq or SplitOn
values to a letter or a number (A-Za-z0-9) unless you are a
wizard at encodings.
The defaults were chosen to maximize the likelyhood that CGI
backed URLs will be crawled by search engines and that MSIE
won't try something stupid because of a '.tla' on a URL.
param([$fieldname]);
Called as `$path_info->param();' it returns the list of all
defined parameter fields in the same order they appear in
the data in PATH_INFO.
Called as `$path_info->param($fieldname);' it returns the
value (or array of values for multiple occurances of the
same field name) assigned to that $fieldname. If there is
more than one value, the values are returned in the same
order they appeared in the data from user agent. If called
in a scalar context when several values are present for
specified parameter, the *first* value will be returned.
Examples:
my (@form_fields) = $path_info->param;
my (@multi_pick_field) = $path_info->param('pick_field_name');
my ($form_field_value) = $path_info->param('some_field_name');
You can also use the param method to set param values to new
values. These values will be returned by this CGI::PathInfo
object as if they had been found in the originally processed
PATH_INFO data. This will not affect a seperately created
instance of CGI::PathInfo.
Examples:
$path_info->param( 'name' => 'Joe Shmoe' );
$path_info->param({ 'name' => 'Joe Shmoe',
'birth_date' => '06/25/1966' });
$path_info->param({ 'pick_list' => ['01','05','07'] });
calling_parms_table;
Returns a formatted HTML table containing all the PATH_INFO
parameters for debugging purposes
Example:
print $path_info->calling_parms_table;
url_encode($string);
Returns a URL encoding of the input string. Anything except
0-9a-zA-Z is escaped to %xx form.
The idea is to reserve all other characters for potential
use as parameter or key/value seperators.
Example:
my $url_encoded_string = $path_info->url_encode($string);
url_decode($string);
Returns URL *decoding* of input string (%xx substitutions
are decoded to their actual values).
Example:
my $url_decoded_string = $path_info->url_decode($string);
BUGS
None known.
TODO
Who knows?
AUTHORS
Benjamin Franz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
VERSION
Version 1.00 22 July 2000
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) Benjamin Franz and FreeRun Technologies July 2000.
All rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
--
Benjamin Franz
Perl - A post-modern programming language or a
scripting tool gone horribly, horribly wrong?
-- Rob Malda
