Choosing a programming panguage
Testing and debugging your script
Configuring the server
Calling your CGI script
Security
In the previous chapter, you learned how your CGI script receives data from the Web server and how to return your script's results to the Web browser. You now have the all the knowledge you need to begin writing useful CGI scripts. So let's get started.This chapter lays the foundation that you need to write, debug, and run your CGI scripts. The first piece of this foundation is choosing a programming language in which to write your scripts. You learn what to look for when selecting a language and which languages are the most popular. You also pick up a few pointers on testing and debugging and common mistakes that you can avoid. After you have finished coding and debugging, you learn how to configure your Web server and how to call your CGI script. Finally, you learn a bit about security for both the data that is being transmitted and the system on which your script is running.
Choosing a programming language
Before starting your script, you need to choose which programming language to use. For most projects, choosing a language is largely a matter of preference. While die-hard UNIX gurus will rely on one of the UNIX shells, C, or Perl, a Windows user might prefer a DOS batch file or Visual Basic. The choice is up to you, but you must choose a language that will produce a program that is ex