Input to CGI

Although gaining a complete understanding and mastery of the Common Gateway Interface takes some time, the interface itself is fairly simple. Anyone with some basic programming skills and familiarity with the Web is capable of quickly learning how to program fairly sophisticated CGI applications.

One can reduce CGI programming to two tasks: getting information from the Web browser and sending information back to the browser. This is fairly intuitive once you realize how CGI applications are usually used. Often, the user is presented with a form to complete. Once the user fills out this form and submits it, the information is sent to a CGI program. The CGI program must then convert that information into something it understands, process it appropriately, and then send something back to the browser, whether it is a simple acknowledgment or the results of a complex database search.

In other words, programming CGI requires understanding how to get input from and how to send output back to the Web browser. What goes on between the input and output stages of a CGI program depends on what the developer wants to accomplish.

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