PERL web addressing

[Dale]

Probably a dumb question but....
I ran across a site that is using an addressing technique that impressed me
and a variation on it could solve a problem I've been working on.

I've been considering setting up a "folder" with a sub-folder representing
each "page". Then I could have a hidden default executable that would
validate user agents and users would have a bit of a time knowing what
language was being used or the server platform. Probably pretty niave but a
thought.

Anyway, the site in question has all of its links and addresses in the form
of blah.com/index.pl/[some folder] There are no page or file type references
visible in either the address bar or status bar and the source code in the
browser is in the same format. I've seen many sites that use a querystring
to reference the requested file and process the request through a script but
never this method.

Thoughts?
Dale

 

[Dale]

Thanks Guys
It looks like "extra path information" was what I needed. The server I'm
working with is configured to see the program name and pass the extra info
so I'm off and running.
Thanks again
Dale

That would be a great approach and I'm familiar with settng up IIS to handle
vertual vs physical paths. Unfortunately I'm not terribly well versed in
Apache server administration and the site I'm working on is hosted by an ISP
with their own views on how a site/server should be configured. When I saw
the default.pl/folder addressing scheme I figured it was a PERL module or
method I was unfamiliar with responsible for requesting and serving the
appropriate file(s). I'm being asked to provide "secure" (login) access to a
variety of file types hosted on a remote server and .htaccess is fighting me
on this server. This approach, combined with session cookies seemed workable
since it effectively hides the file path and name. So far every attempt I've
made to request a file from the site I stumbled on has been met with
scripted access; I'm a little impresssed and am curious how they're do it.
the domain is softwingflight.com (my favorite hobby) I haven't checked the
domain registration or service provider yet, just curious about a different
technique.

Thanks for the feedback
Dale

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 15:27:52 -0400, Dale wrote:

Anyway, the site in question has all of its links and addresses in the
form of blah.com/index.pl/[some folder] There are no page or file type
references visible in either the address bar or status bar and the
source code in the browser is in the same format. I've seen many sites
that use a querystring to reference the requested file and process the
request through a script but never this method.

Why not use a Apache handler to do the job? It's even more professional;

http://www.blah.com/some/path/goes/here/

Of course, '/some/path/goes/here/' doesn't exist, but the Apache handler
has been set up to handle all requests so that it's able to convert that
path to something more useful internally (ie. lookup the path string in a
database or something like that).

For more information:

http://perl.apache.org/


--
Tore Aursand <[email protected]>
"Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should
contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences,
for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines
and a machine no unnecessary parts." -- William Strunk Jr.

Perhaps http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/cgi/ch02_04.html will get you
started.

Len