Mailing List Archive

On Fri, 4 Aug 1995, Rob Hartill forwarded:
> > >CGI scripts *must* have headers. They're not CGI if they don't
> > >produce a header.
> > >If you want to include output of a script
> > >that doesn't produce headers, you should use exec cmd=""
> >
> > This is not how NCSA's server works, that's why I call it a bug. The problem
> > with using "exec cmd" is that you must know the absolute path to the script,
> > but "exec cgi" allows you to use a virtual path. I can't afford to use
> > absolute paths since the scripts must be portable with no modifications.

So, the solution is obviously to allow "exec cmd" to use relative paths.
That's how #include works too.

> > With NCSA's server, I wrote docs that had "exec cgi" includes imbedded
> > in the middle of a document. Now they don't work with Apache, which
> > advertises itself as a "drop-in replacement". This is not so, and
> > therefore it's a misleading statement.

Hahaha.

> > Either Apache needs to conform to NCSA standards,
[er, bugs]

> > or a mechanism to
> > exec cmds via virtual paths needs to be added.

This is what I'd prefer

> > The former is highly
> > preferable for compatiblity reasons. a "drop-in replacement" should
> > be exactly that.

"...highly preferable because I'm lazy and don't like fixing my bugs."

Sorry, busy Friday. The docs are still in progress. RobT, you can
announce anytime, it'll be a week before the documentation is fully
complete but I'll work on it this weekend. I will have 0.8.7 on
hyperreal and organic before the end of the day.

Brian

--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--
brian@organic.com brian@hyperreal.com http://www.[hyperreal,organic].com/

Hmmm... Apache is a bit pickier about script headers generally, and
we've always acknowledged that. I can live with the inconsistency, too,
but we might want to write it up... also, I can see a role for a *really*
bug-compatible mode in which we stopped it from being picky about soem of
the things that NCSA would let slide. But it's OK to leave things the
way they are for the beta...

Hmmm... "It's OK for the beta"... I think that's becoming my mantra...

rst

Sorry, busy Friday. The docs are still in progress. RobT, you can
announce anytime, it'll be a week before the documentation is fully
complete but I'll work on it this weekend. I will have 0.8.7 on
hyperreal and organic before the end of the day.

Thanks, but... there is a certain amount of work that really ought to
go onto the web site at the same time as the announcement (at least
moving in a new home page, or one of the new ones), and it seemed to
me that the same person ought to do both.

That doesn't mean that *all* the work has to be finished, just a few
top-level changes...

rst