cgi script efficiently invoking another cgi script

[B&T <80...@sympatico.ca>]

Assume you roughly have a one-to-one between scripts and web pages.
How do you write a script to display its own web page or efficiently
invoke another script/page?  Redirect is slow.  Can you exec, i.e.
can a cgi script exec another in it's own place?

For example:
Suppose you write a "login" script/screen in a cgi file, to display
and verify (and possibly redisplay) a web page for login information.
On successful login, you want it to set some cookies and invoke
another script/screen.  A redirect seems extremely inefficient.

I find this situation pops up all over the place.  How do other
people deal with this?  Just redirect?

Re: cgi script efficiently invoking another cgi script

[darren chamberlain <da...@boston.com>]

B&T (80stclair@sympatico.ca) said something to this effect:
> Assume you roughly have a one-to-one between scripts and web pages.
> How do you write a script to display its own web page or efficiently
> invoke another script/page?  Redirect is slow.  Can you exec, i.e.
> can a cgi script exec another in it's own place?
> 
> For example:
> Suppose you write a "login" script/screen in a cgi file, to display
> and verify (and possibly redisplay) a web page for login information.
> On successful login, you want it to set some cookies and invoke
> another script/screen.  A redirect seems extremely inefficient.
> 
> I find this situation pops up all over the place.  How do other
> people deal with this?  Just redirect?

I don't think you can do this in CGI, but when using the mod_perl API, 
you can call $r->internal_redirect( '/target/uri' ). This
is how Apache handles ErrorDocument generation; the URI in the
location box is unchanged, there is no second request (as far
as the browser is concerned), and the output of the second
handler gets sent to the browser.

darren


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