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Implementing custom CGI scripts within you own CGI-BIN Directory

Our web servers have the capability to run CGI scripts in your very own "cgi-bin" directory, click here for a test. Scripts may be written in languages called Perl. Perl is is a world standard and is well suited to CGI. In addition, Perl code does not require manual compilations whereas other languages must be compiled on another computer prior to use.

Affordable Business Domain Hosting . can provide custom CGI scripting services. For more information click here.

All documentation that we include in our downloadable perl scripts, and our scripts' FAQ web pages, assume that you have at least a general familiarity with setting up Perl scripts. If you need more specific assistance, click here.

Here are some helpful tips to follow when installing scripts;

Perl Scripts

1. Save the Perl(CGI) script with the extension of .pl or .cgi
2. Upload to your cgi-bin directory to ensure proper file permission settings
3. Upload in ASCII transfer mode (and NOT BINARY mode)
4. The first line of each script must read: #!/usr/bin/perl
5. Reference the script using /cgi-bin
6. Always remember to include print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; or alternatively using the Perl module CGI.pm (If you do not, your scripts will not run and you will get an Internal Server Error message).
    
   use CGI qw(:cgi-lib :standard);
   print header();

Windows CGI Scripts

1. Save And Compile the Windows CGI script with the extension of .exe
2. Upload to your cgi-bin directory to ensure proper file permission settings
3. Upload in ASCII transfer mode (and NOT BINARY mode)
4. Reference the script using /cgi-bin
5. Always remember to include print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
   

For Perl - If a script calls another file within your account, but the script does NOT require a URL, you need to use the system path. Instead of using the absolute path to your home directory ("/yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/somefile"), you should instead use the DOCUMENT_ROOT environment variable ($ENV{DOCUMENT_ROOT} in Perl) to determine the path of your files or programs within a script. If this does not work please contact us for more help via e-mail at: support@ABDH.net.

Change this:  /yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/data/fact.pl
To this:  $ENV{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/data/fact.pl

*** All hosting customers must compile their own scripts on their local PC.

Other Resources
DOS based Perl editor