Web publishing - FORM ACTION (OpenInsight Specific)
At 15 OCT 1998 10:14:55AM Oystein Reigem wrote:
When I publish an OI window to the web I get
<code></code>
or
<code></code>
which is correct according to the documentation I have, but nevertheless gives me a "Resource not found" when I submit (or was it sometimes "Bad POST"???).
My first, naive thought was it failed because my published HTML document was in a sub folder of the server document folder (the latter folder is HtDocs (I use HTTPd, possibly not the newest version), and my HTML document is in HtDocs/Regimus). But now I don't think so.
If I change the ACTION value to an explicit absolute path, i.e put "/cgi-bin/oicgi.exe" instead of ".", the form works. I've consulted a more knowledgeable colleague on this and he's never seen the sparse syntax the OI HTML publisher seems to produce. He thinks what I've done is necessary and correct.
But on two occations I have seen Andrew McAuley publish and run forms without needing to edit them beforehand. Or perhaps I blinked while he did it…
Is there something you know that I don't know?
- Oystein -
At 15 OCT 1998 01:11PM Andrew P McAuley wrote:
Have you got an alias defined for your CGI-BIN on the web server?
amcauley@sprezzatura.com
World Leaders in all things RevSoft
At 15 OCT 1998 01:45PM Carl Pates wrote:
Hi Oystein,
If I change the ACTION value to an explicit absolute path, i.e put "/cgi-bin/oicgi.exe" instead of ".", the form works. I've consulted a more knowledgeable colleague on this and he's never seen the sparse syntax the OI HTML publisher seems to produce. He thinks what I've done is necessary and correct.
FYI, the default action of the ACTION attribute in the FORM tag is to send the form back to the page that created it, hence there is no need to specify the full URL. If the form is a standard HTML page then nothing much will happen but if the form originated from a CGI server then it gets sent back there…clever eh?
cpates@sprezzatura.com
World Leaders in all things RevSoft
At 15 OCT 1998 03:41PM abjones wrote:
My interpretation of reality:
The "action" code is web-server dependent. The "./xxxx" sends
it to the source url back one level on "Microsoft" type servers,
but some servers don't treat the "INET_" name is a directory level
in the string /cgi-bin/oicgi.exe/inet_stuff and don't send the form
data back to oicgi.
A feature or a bug?
Blair Jones
At 16 OCT 1998 05:26AM Carl Pates wrote:
My interpretation of reality:
Arrghhh….no no no.. not the real world! Help! Help! Let me get off!
At 16 OCT 1998 08:36AM Oystein Reigem wrote:
Andrew/Blair/Carl,
Please help me a little bit further.
Carl,
Let's say I have a web server http://a.b.c.d, and a static HTML page with a form, stored in the server directory htdoc/stuff/. Then the "." in "ACTION=./" will be interpreted as http://a.b.c.d/htdoc/stuff/. Is that what you say?
And let's say I have this form that originated at my CGI server. Then the "." in "ACTION=./" will be interpreted as the CGI directory, e.g http://a.b.c.d/cgi-bin/. Is that what you say?
Andrew,
No, I haven't defined any aliases myself. So now I tried to learn about aliasing/mapping by investigating the "properties" for both my own virgin server and another server we've got running for a while.
Do you mean that to get "ACTION=./" and "ACTION=./INET_something" to work I could define "./" or "." as an alias for the CGI directory???
Blair,
The "action" code is web-server dependent.
I guess it's worse when features are browser dependent, but server dependent is bad enough. We want the stuff we develop to run at customers, and we cannot force them to use particular servers and platforms.
The "./xxxx" sends it to the source url back one level on "Microsoft" type servers,
What do you mean by "back one level"? Up one directory???
but some servers don't treat the "INET_" name is a directory level in the string /cgi-bin/oicgi.exe/inet_stuff
I don't understand. The "INET_" name is not a directory level, so why should it be treated as one?
and don't send the form data back to oicgi.
- Oystein -
At 16 OCT 1998 01:42PM Carl Pates wrote:
Hi Oystein,
And let's say I have this form that originated at my CGI server. Then the "." in "ACTION=./" will be interpreted as the CGI directory, e.g http://a.b.c.d/cgi-bin/. Is that what you say?
Yes.
If you have an HTML document with this URL:
http://someserver.com/cgi-bin/oicgi.exe/INET_SOME_PROC
and your ACTION attribute in the FORM tag is "./"
then whatever data your form collects gets sent to
http://someserver.com/cgi-bin/oicgi.exe/
Regards
cpates@sprezzatura.com
World Leaders in all things RevSoft