Assignment 3:
Simple CGI for form processing

INSS 452/752

1. Your first task is to design a form for the UB Programing Club (note: this is a fictitious club). Use UB Programming Club as a Heading and Join the Club as a sub-header, add the UB gif to the page, draw a horizontal rule (line) and create input areas (each one in a line) for name, address, e-mail address, username and password. This form would be used to allow students join the club on the Web.

2. Your second task is to write a CGI (Perl script) which uses the input provided by the form, encrypts the password, and write this info to a members.txt file.

   • I suggest you do a file layout by hand and select the key to the file (in this case username is a good candidate).
   • then create a Perl script which reads simple input variables for the fields you are going to read from the form, e.g. $uname, $passwd, etc.,encrypts the password, and writes these values to the file members.txt.
   • be sure your program does not create duplicates in the members.txt file (hint: first create a program that only writes into the members.txt file. Later modify it to read the input, read the file and if no match then add).
   • once this is working, convert the script into a CGI using require "cgi-lib.pl"; and its subroutine &ReadParse; as seen in class for the bugreport.pl script, particularly in the WriteReport Subroutine.

3. Modify the script using the &MethGet subroutine of cgi-lib.pl to return the form you created if the method is get, or to write to the members.txt file if the method is post. The method will be get if there is a direct link to the URL of the script; the method will be post if you fill in the form and submit it.

4. Test your CGI in the apache installation you did in assignment 1. The CGI script should be placed in the cgi-bin subdirectory of the Apache server. The form file should go in the htdocs directory (Windows) or html directory (Linux).

5. When you are done read these instructions on how to submit a copy of the form and CGI script you created as your assignment 3 (A3).

This page is maintained by Al Bento who can be reached at abento@UBmail.ubalt.edu This page was last updated on August 20, 2002. Although we will attempt to keep this information accurate, we can not guarantee the accuracy of the information provided.