| How it Works | ||
|---|---|---|
 | Chapter 11. SIMPOL Web Server Applications |  |
How it Works
To produce a program that can be called from a web server is fairly easy. Below is a standard web version of a "Hello World" program that is written in SIMPOL:
function main(cgicall cgi)
string s
s = "Content-type: text/HTML{d}{a}{d}{a}"
s = s + "<html><body>Hello World!</body></html>"
end function s
This program might be saved as cgihello.sma. When compiled the program would normally
be called cgihello.smp. To get the Apache web server to run this program it would have
to be prefaced by what is known as a shebang line. This is a convention that originated
on Unix. It is formatted in such a way that it is normally considered a comment in shell scripts but this
one has a special format and is interpreted to determine which program should be used to execute the remainder
of the script. In the case of a web server program this line is retrieved by the web server and used to find
out what program should be used to execute that script. For a Windows-based program, the shebang line might
look like this:
#!C:\Program Files\SIMPOL\bin\smpcgi32.exe{d}{a}
The SIMPOL IDE is especially designed to make building these types of programs quite easy. Simply go into
the dialog called from the →
menu item and add a target. In the target add/modify dialog add the target and the shebang line that is
appropriate. When you build the project it will automatically copy the result to the target directory and
prepend the shebang line to it. To get it to be called is web server specific. On Apache, in the
httpd.conf file the line: Add-Handler cgi-script .smp would need
to be added and if running, Apache would need to be restarted. This program is already available on the Superbase
web site: SIMPOL Hello World Sample.