Pipeline

Hello, I'm Jim Hoagland, and these pages talk about my Perl 5 Unix driver program for CGI FPI, Pipeline, and how to use it. The name of the Pipeline CGI-script is pipeline.pl. The current version number is 2.0.

Most of you probably got here from my HFPM pages just wanting to know how to use the program. In that case, I'll just mention to you that Pipeline is more general that just HFPM modules and you can skip to the usage page.

For the rest of you, the HTML Form Processing Modules (HFPM) is a set of modules that I wrote that uses Pipeline to accept a submitted HTML form, possibly modify or validate the contents of the submitted fields, and output the result using e-mail, appending to a file, and/or displaying it to the user or returning an arbitrary URL. They also operate on the environmental variables passed in from the client and server.

See also the article on CGI FPI and Pipeline (version 1.0) in Websmith magazine.

CGI FPI? What's that?

The CGI Filter/Module Interface (CGI FPI) is a way of executing multiple (often small) modules when a form is submitted. This is opposed to say, Getcomments, and which does a number of useful things, but is not particularly customizable and probably does some things you don't need it to.

What's news?

Version 2.0 of Pipeline is now available (as of 1/27/97). This new release adds some new features, including ones for enhanced security. [download link deleted], but be sure to read what has changed.

An online utility to configure pipeline.pl for site-specific locations and global parameters used to be available.

An article about HFPM, CGI FPI, and Pipeline (version 1.0) appeared in the July issue of WebSmith magazine. Check is out!

For you convenience, a list of HFPM modules is available in a file.

What do I need to run it?

To use Pipeline, you need a UNIX system with perl version 5 installed (find out how to get it at Metronet) and http server that you're able to put cgi-scripts on (you might need to talk to your server administrator about this). You also need the CGI.pm perl 5 module.

How do I write modules that use Pipeline?

Look at this page.

Okay, so how do I install and use Pipeline?

Read this page.

Help!

Here is a Pipeline Frequently Asked Questions answer page.

If you have any questions that aren't answered by the FAQ or other online documentation, feel free to e-mail webmaster@hoagland.org for more information or with questions. Be aware though that Jim is busy and it might take a while to respond to your message.

What other related online resources are there?

• HTML forms overview at NCSA
  
• HTML Form Processing Modules home page

Thats it. Enjoy.