Using CGIFILE

CGIFILE uses a template and ACTION like CGIEMAIL, but appends information to a file rather than mailing it. These directions assume that you have already created a web page form and template file using CGIEMAIL. If not, please review the CGIEMAIL documentation for directions on how to create these files.

CGIFILE requires a file called "incoming.txt". The incoming.txt file stores the responses submitted by the form in the format specified in the template file.

Overview

1. Visitors enter information into a web page form.
   In this example, the web page form is called feedback.htm

2. The information is stored into a file called "incoming.txt"
   NOTE: This file must be called incoming.txt and must reside in the same location as the template file.

3. A template file describes how the responses will be listed in the "incoming.txt" file.
   In this example, the template file is called feedback.txt

CGIFILE Directions

1. Login to a host such as apollo or online using Telnet
2. Using the Change Directory command (cd), change directory to public_html

   

3. Using the "mkdir" command, create a directory inside public_html.
   This directory will be used to store the web page form, template file and incoming.txt file. Later, we will give this directory write access so data can be written to the incoming.txt file. These files need to stored in it's own directory to restric t write access to only this directory and to avoid giving users access to write to your other files.

   In this example, we will create a directory called "feedback".

   Example:

   

4. Copy the CGIEMAIL web page form and template file you created earlier into the new directory.

   Example:
   Using the CGIEMAIL example, move the web page form "feedback.htm" and template file "feedback.txt" stored in the public_html directory to the new directory "feedback". This will need to be done in two steps.

   Step 1:

   Step 2:

5. Change file permissions to permit writing to this directory by anyone.

   Example:

   

6. Using the change directory command (cd), change to the directory storing your files

   Example:

   

7. Using "pico", edit the template file to use CGIFILE instead of CGIEMAIL by deleting the mail information. (To:, From: and Subject:).

   Example:
   In the CGIEMAIL example, the template file is called "feedback.txt".

   

   The contents of the cgiemail template file look like this. The results are listed below with headings so the e-mail will be readable.:
   

   From: [email] (optional)
   To: userid@sfsu.edu
   Subject: Sample Questionnaire

   Student: [student]
   Term: [term]
   Major: [major]
   My comments: [comments]

   Change the cgifile template file to look like this. The results here are shown without headings -- the data is comma delimited with a single carriage return at the end of the line so it can easily be imported to another program.:

   [email],[student],[term],[major],[comments]

8. Save the changes and exit by pressing CTRL and X at the same time, say yes when prompted to save.

9. Using "pico", edit the FORM tag in the web page form to point to CGIFILE instead of CGIEMAIL.

   Example:
   In the CGIEMAIL example, the web page form is called "feedback.htm".

   

   Using the down arrow key, scroll down until you see code similar to the following:

   <form METHOD="POST" ACTION=""[servername]/cgi- bin/cgiemail/~accountname/feedback.txt">


   Edit the FORM tag to point to CGIFILE:

   <form METHOD="POST" ACTION="[servername]/cgi-bin/cgifile/~accountname/feedback/feedback.txt">

   Also, check the following:

   • Replace ~accountname with your Internet Account name
   • Add the folder name where the web page form and template file are stored. In this example, the folder is called "feedback".
   • Replace feedback.txt with the name of your template file. In this example, the template file is called "feedback.txt".

10. Using the "touch" command, create an empty "incoming.txt" file in the feedback directory.
    The incoming.txt file stores the responses submitted from the form into a format specified in the template file.

    Example:

    

11. Test the web page and make sure it puts the responses into the incoming.txt file.

12. If you want to clear the information in the incoming.txt file, use the Remove (rm) command to delete the file then use the touch command to create it again

    Example:

    Step 1:

    Step 2:

To pickup the results/data from your form you can ftp incoming.txt to your workstation/PC.

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Last modified February 11, 2008 by the Web Team