- From: Chris Adie <C.J.Adie@ed.ac.uk>
- Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:12:54 +0000
- To: Mike Meyer <mwm@contessa.phone.net>
- Cc: www-talk@w3.org
Mike Meyer <mwm@contessa.phone.net> wrote: > Now, pull that thought I asked you to hold. Are there any existing CGI > implementations that don't use the standard I/O streams? Are there any > existing CGI applications that won't break on a server that chooses > not to implement the two streams in that way? This also breaks > existing applications. Yes, there are certainly CGI implementations in use right now which don't use stdio streams - for example, CGI scripts using Visual Basic (which has no concept of stdin/stdout), or scripts implemented as DLLs. DLLs don't use environment variables either. This is not perversity, it is just that those mechanisims are not appropriate to these types of script. I believe it is very important to keep the CGI standard as general as possible. The standard should not include *any* reference to implementation details of how the server identifies and communicates with the CGI program. Separate platform-specific specs should do that. So, avoid implementation-specific terms like "environment variables", and call them (say) "CGI variables" instead. Regards, Chris Adie Phone: +44 131 650 6773 Edinburgh University Computing Service Fax: +44 131 650 6552 James Clark Maxwell Building Email: C.J.Adie@ed.ac.uk Kings Buildings Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, United Kingdom
Received on Friday, 17 November 1995 06:10:08 UTC