The hidden control fields are those of the form <INPUT TYPE=hidden NAME=name VALUE=value> . These are used by getcomments to control its behavior much as command-line arguments are used to control the behavior of programs invoked on UNIX command-lines. If the field is not present a default is used. The following pages contain a list of recognized fields and the meaning of their values as well as some examples. Please note that in the following, "commenter" and "comments" should be taken to mean "the person who submits the form" and "the values/fields of the form."
True ValuesThe following values are "true" when used in the control fields:
Variable Encoded Format (VEF)This encoding is used in output format specification and allows run-time values to be referenced. The following replacements are done, in order:
Symbol Encoded Format (SEF)This encoding is used in inline output formatting and allows symbols used in HTML to be quoted. The following replacements are done:
There is now a perl script, tosef.pl, that will take some HTML text in and output the equivalent text, but in symbol encoded format. Input is to standard input and output is to standard output. Here is the free distribution of tosef.pl.
Environmental VariablesEnvironmental variables are variables passed from your server to the Getcomments program. Here is a partial list of common environmental variables from NCSA. Select this to see what variables come from your browser and this server. In addition, I have added three more. "%date" refers to the time at which the form is submitted. "%RHOST" refers to "%REMOTE_HOST" is available otherwise "%REMOTE_ADDR". "%count" refers to the count of forms submitted, if available; to be available, the "_comment_dir" field must be filled out with a writable directory and a file "count" must exist in that directory and be readable and writable. If this is not the case, an error will be reported, but processing will continue with "%count" set to 0.
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