Browser timeouts

That could be a tough one, Phil.

Put

$|=1;

However, just because it flushes the pipe to the browser, doesn't mean a server or the browser won't cache it.

I'm sure there's a better solution, but the few times I've needed to keep a browser alert, I've send a 1025 following every print block. Like

print "\n" x 1025;

That could quickly become a very large page if it's done a lot.

Speeding up the scripts would help, but somethimes that can't be done, or not enough to make the difference.

Can the process be accomplished in two phases, maybe? If yes, the first phase could draw a web page with hidden fields containing whatever information the second phase needs. The user can then be instructed to "click this button to complete the process" or something like that.

Sorry I don't have a "this will work" answer.

Yes, the browser timing out would signal the CGI program that it's no longer needed. CGI is a gateway, and closing something on one side, the browser or the program, closes the gate.

An idea, if your server can relay email to a script, set up an email address to nudge the program you want to run. You would bypass the CGI protocol this way.

When you're ready to run the program, send an email to that special address. The script can email you back when its done.

There's no need to rewrite lots of stuff.

Instead of using a browser to make the instruction file and then sending an email to nudge the script, the email itself might hold the instructions.

Put the instructions into the body so they can be parsed, maybe something like

File: something.txt
NewFile: other.txt
Start: 'A'
End: 'E'

or whatever the instructions need to be. Those lines can then be parsed with something like

my %Instructions = ();
for(split /\n/,$Email)
{
     next unless /:/;
     my($name,$value) = split /:/,$_,2;
     $Instructions{$name} = $value;
}

The script to grab the email and discard the header lines could be something like

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
   # Grab the email relayed to the script
my $Email = join '',<STDIN>;
   # Normalize to Unix line endings
if($Email =~ /\n/) { $Email =~ s/\r//g;   }
else               { $Email =~ s/\r/\n/g; }
   # Discard the email header lines 
   #   (blank line separates header from body)
(undef,$Email) = split /\n\n/,$Email,2;
   # $Email now contains the body of the email.

So that's one way.

If you prefer to use a form, maybe so you don't have to remember how the email is supposed to be formatted, you could use a form processor like Master Form V3 to generate the email and send it to the script's email address.

It's late, and I didn't test the above code, but I think you see the idea.

Hi Phil,

If you can't do it through cpanel (I don't know cpanel very well), check out the Master Autoresponder Bank manual "Requesting an Auto-Response By Email" section. It has general instructions for several different methods of getting an incoming email to a script — sendmail's "aliases" file, procmail, and the Unix ".forward" file.

If it can be done with cpanel, it would probably be in the section where you forward email, and the forwarded address might be something like

|/path/to/perl /path/to/script.cgi

An example email for your hosting company:

I'm installing a Perl script that will process email sent to a certain email address.

The server will need to relay/pipe certain email to the script. Would that be done with Unix the ".forward" file, the sendmail "aliases" file, the procmail "procmailrc" file, or some other way?

I'm glad the problem resulted in benefits beyond the original question. Like "they" say, there is a reason for everything :)

(Who the heck is "they," anyway? I want to talk to those folks about a few things they simply got wrong.)

Thank you for mentioning the charity drive. Yes, 20% off on the CGI programs and half of the proceeds go to charity.

This is the second year we've done this. Last year a nice check went to charity. We (and they) appreciate any word of mouth promotion the drive gets.