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Forms and CGI: What are they?

There are two parts two providing user interaction in HTML forms:

Form
-- the HTML form itself. The User Interface.
A CGI script
-- a program which resides on the Web server itself. This program is written in a language such as Perl, C/C++, TCL, AppleScript, or another Common Gateway Interface (CGI) language.

The Common Gateway Interface

The role of this CGI program is:


Figure: The Common Gateway Interface

What does a CGI program do?

For this section we will concentrate on the User interface (HTML side) of Forms. Subsequent sections will deal with CGI and Perl programming.


next up previous contents
Next: Some Example Forms Up: Forms: Facilitating User Input Previous: Forms: Facilitating User Input
dave@cs.cf.ac.uk