T4   CGI and WWW Programming in Perl
Tom Christiansen, Consultant

Who should attend: Programmers with some background in Perl and HTML. No previous CGI experience is required. Programmers without any Perl background should read the Llama book first. This is neither a "for non-programmers" course nor a "for guru programmers" course. It's for "occasional programmers", folks other than UNIX gurus who need to deal with CGI and WWW programming.

Have you always wanted to learn about CGI and other WWW programming using Perl, but didn't know where to begin? This tutorial will provide you with a good start. Special attention is given to system security issues. All aspects of writing and processing fill-out forms are covered using the standard LWP.pm module to write scripts that fetch and analyze remote documents.

Specific topics include:

	Configuring your server for CGI execution
	Setuid execution and taint checking
	Avoiding the perils of shell escapes and backquotes
	An overview of the HTTP and CGI protocols
	CGI-related environment variables
	CGI without forms
	Debugging your CGI programs interactively
	Remote browser and remote user determination
	All standard form widgets
	Generating dynamic forms
	Persistent widget values
	Cookies
	Multistage ("shopping cart") forms
	Saving forms to files or sockets
	Sending mail safely
	Virtual hosts and directories
	Location redirection
	Database access using flat text or HTML files, DBM files, and a full SQL database
	HTML parsing and link analysis
	Processing URLs by modification date
	Negotiating through firewall proxies