CGI expert?

[titus]

Hello,

Trying to add some surveys to this site but had problems with the set up.
Please take a look at:
Test Survey

The script generated a "Data File is Missing!" messeage. Anyone has any clue?

Titus

[Aquattro]

Titus, I'd say either the cgi script isn't in the cgi-bin directory, or the wrong permissions are set on the dir.

[reefburnaby]

Hello Titus,

Does $DATA_PATH/clubschedule.srv exists ? If not...then thats the problem. I think the script is running...just missing some files.

You'll also need perms to read/write to $DATA_PATH srv and log files.

[ 19 August 2001: Message edited by: reefburnaby ]

[titus]

Hello reefburnaby,

Yes, $DATA_PATH/clubschedule.srv does exist.
I'm looking at the cgi script and it has the following:
$DATA_FILE="$DATA_PATH/$SURVEY_NAME\.srv";
$LOG_FILE="$DATA_PATH/$SURVEY_NAME\.log";
if ( !-e $DATA_FILE){
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n Data File is Missing!\n";
exit;
}

The $DATA_PATH variable was declared by me using the correct path. However, a search for $SURVEY_NAME led to:

if ($fields{'survey_name'}=~/^([-\@\w.]+)$/){
$SURVEY_NAME=$fields{'survey_name'};
}

But I am unable to see %fields being declared anywhere else. Perhaps you can shed some light on this.

Thanks
Titus

[reefburnaby]

Hello Titus,

I fired up IIS on my machine and installed the script. It seems to work....you might want to check what $DATA_PATH is being interpreted as. Silly things like wrong slash direction ('\' vs '/') can mess it up.

Try adding this to the offending 'if' command...

sub check_files{
$DATA_FILE="$DATA_PATH/$SURVEY_NAME\.srv";
$LOG_FILE="$DATA_PATH/$SURVEY_NAME\.log";
if ( !-e $DATA_FILE){
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n Data File is Missing!\n";
print $DATA_FILE;
exit;

when it dies...you should see if $DATA_FILE is correct. $DATA_FILE should be a path that is valid to the perl interpreter. ie. mine is c:\inetpub\wwwroot\survey\survey.srv.

BTW, %fields is passed through the html form.

Hope that helps.

[ 20 August 2001: Message edited by: reefburnaby ]

[titus]

Hello reefburnaby,

Thanks for the debugging tip.
I implemented that and I can see the path, which is another way to say it still doesn't work.

If you click the submit button again you'll see the following:
Data File is Missing! /userweb/titus/web/survey/cgi-bin/clubschedule.srv

And if you enter the following as URL you'll see the data file: http://www.canreef.com/survey/cgi-bin/clubschedule.srv

So the path is correct and the data file is there. I wonder what is going on here.

Titus

[reefburnaby]

Hello Titus,

Sounds like you are on a unix system of some sort (right ?). I guess the program still can't see the file.

Try this code :

sub check_files{
$DATA_FILE="$DATA_PATH/$SURVEY_NAME\.srv";
$LOG_FILE="$DATA_PATH/$SURVEY_NAME\.log";
if ( !-e $DATA_FILE){
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n Data File is Missing!\n";
print $DATA_FILE;

use DirHandle;

$d = new DirHandle $DATA_PATH;
if (defined($d)) {
print "<BR>Good Data Path";
}
else {
print "<BR> Bad Data Path";
}
while (defined($_ = $d->read)) {
print $_ . "<br>";
}
exit;
}

if (!-e ....

This should tell you if you have a bad path or not. It should also tell you if you are looking at the right directory (i.e. it prints out the directory for you).

The good news is that I tried out your clubschedule code on my machine and it works fine.

Hope that helps.

[titus]

Hello reefburnaby,

Um... it says bad data path.
Mind explaining what this mean?
$d = new DirHandle $DATA_PATH;

Thanks
Titus

[reefburnaby]

Hello,

Sorry about going over your head....

The code I posted is suppose to read the directory at $DATA_PATH.

so...
$d = new DirHandle $DATA_PATH
opens a handle, $d, that can be used to get the file names in the subdirectory $DATA_PATH.

if $d is not defined, then perl was not able
to open $DATA_PATH. Hence, returns "Bad Data Path". If the data path is good, then the next section of code will read the file names from the subdirectory $DATA_PATH into $_ and print it out. print "<BR>" is an HTML code that causes a line break.

I guess you are wondering where we should go from here. From what I can see, the path $DATA_PATH is not correct. So, we will try something else like :

$DATA_PATH = ".";

In theory, it should print out the directory of something -- this something should be what ever is in cgi-bin (not sure, but thats what mine does). Try mucking around with the $DATA_PATH until it works or you see something familiar.

Try

$DATA_PATH = "/" or "/userweb/titus"

I guess that problem is a bit more complicated that you had hoped...so we should take this offline since it is a pain try to explain it over a bulletin board. My name is Victor. So you can give me a call at home @ 420-8789 or at work at 415-6000-2033.

[titus]

Hello reefburnaby,

Thanks for your help. We got it up and running now. Turned out that there 2 more layers of directories I have to set in the $DATA_PATH variable.

Thanks again,
Titus