$Response->{ExpiresAbsolute} = $date
Sends a response header to the client with $date being an absolute
time to expire. Formats accepted are all those accepted by
HTTP::Date::str2time(), e.g.
"Wed, 09 Feb 1994 22:23:32 GMT" -- HTTP format
"Tuesday, 08-Feb-94 14:15:29 GMT" -- old rfc850 HTTP format
"08-Feb-94" -- old rfc850 HTTP format
"09 Feb 1994" -- proposed new HTTP format
"Feb 3 1994" -- Unix 'ls -l' format
"Feb 3 17:03" -- Unix 'ls -l' format
$Response->{FormFill} = 0|1
If true, HTML forms generated by the script output will
be auto filled with data from $Request->Form. This feature
requires HTML::FillInForm to be installed. Please see
the FormFill CONFIG for more information.
This setting overrides the FormFill config at runtime
for the script execution only.
$Response->{IsClientConnected}
Not implemented, but returns 1 currently for portability. This is
value is not yet relevant, and may not be until apache 1.3.6, which will
be tested shortly. Apache versions less than 1.3.6 abort the perl code
immediately upon the client dropping the connection.
$Response->{PICS}
If this property has been set, a PICS-Label HTTP header will be
sent with its value. For those that do not know, PICS is a header
that is useful in rating the internet. It stands for
Platform for Internet Content Selection, and you can find more
info about it at: http://www.w3.org
$Response->{Status} = $status
Sets the status code returned by the server. Can be used to
set messages like 500, internal server error
$Response->AddHeader($name, $value)
Adds a custom header to a web page. Headers are sent only before any
text from the main page is sent, so if you want to set a header
after some text on a page, you must turn BufferingOn.
$Response->AppendToLog($message)
Adds $message to the server log. Useful for debugging.
$Response->BinaryWrite($data)
Writes binary data to the client. The only
difference from $Response->Write() is that $Response->Flush()
is called internally first, so the data cannot be parsed
as an html header. Flushing flushes the header if has not
already been written.
If you have set the $Response->{ContentType}
to something other than text/html, cgi header parsing (see CGI
notes), will be automatically be turned off, so you will not
necessarily need to use BinaryWrite for writing binary data.
For an example of BinaryWrite, see the binary_write.htm example
in ./site/eg/binary_write.htm
Please note that if you are on Win32, you will need to
call binmode on a file handle before reading, if
its data is binary.
$Response->Clear()
Erases buffered ASP output.
$Response->Cookies($name, [$key,] $value)
Sets the key or attribute of cookie with name $name to the value $value.
If $key is not defined, the Value of the cookie is set.
ASP CookiePath is assumed to be / in these examples.
$Response->Cookies('name', 'value');
--> Set-Cookie: name=value; path=/
$Response->Cookies("Test", "data1", "test value");
$Response->Cookies("Test", "data2", "more test");
$Response->Cookies(
"Test", "Expires",
&HTTP::Date::time2str(time+86400)
);
$Response->Cookies("Test", "Secure", 1);
$Response->Cookies("Test", "Path", "/");
$Response->Cookies("Test", "Domain", "host.com");
--> Set-Cookie:Test=data1=test%20value&data2=more%20test; \
expires=Fri, 23 Apr 1999 07:19:52 GMT; \
path=/; domain=host.com; secure
The latter use of $key in the cookies not only sets cookie attributes
such as Expires, but also treats the cookie as a hash of key value pairs
which can later be accesses by
$Request->Cookies('Test', 'data1');
$Request->Cookies('Test', 'data2');
Because this is perl, you can (NOT PORTABLE) reference the cookies
directly through hash notation. The same 5 commands above could be compressed to:
$Response->{Cookies}{Test} =
{
Secure => 1,
Value =>
{
data1 => 'test value',
data2 => 'more test'
},
Expires => 86400, # not portable, see above
Domain => 'host.com',
Path => '/'
};
and the first command would be:
# you don't need to use hash notation when you are only setting
# a simple value
$Response->{Cookies}{'Test Name'} = 'Test Value';
I prefer the hash notation for cookies, as this looks nice, and is
quite perlish. It is here to stay. The Cookie() routine is
very complex and does its best to allow access to the
underlying hash structure of the data. This is the best emulation
I could write trying to match the Collections functionality of
cookies in IIS ASP.
For more information on Cookies, please go to the source at
http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/cookie_spec.html
$Response->Debug(@args)
API Extension. If the Debug config option is set greater than 0,
this routine will write @args out to server error log. refs in @args
will be expanded one level deep, so data in simple data structures
like one-level hash refs and array refs will be displayed. CODE
refs like
$Response->Debug(sub { "some value" });
will be executed and their output added to the debug output.
This extension allows the user to tie directly into the
debugging capabilities of this module.
While developing an app on a production server, it is often
useful to have a separate error log for the application
to catch debugging output separately. One way of implementing
this is to use the Apache ErrorLog configuration directive to
create a separate error log for a virtual host.
If you want further debugging support, like stack traces
in your code, consider doing things like:
$Response->Debug( sub { Carp::longmess('debug trace') };
$SIG{__WARN__} = \&Carp::cluck; # then warn() will stack trace
The only way at present to see exactly where in your script
an error occurred is to set the Debug config directive to 2,
and match the error line number to perl script generated
from your ASP script.
However, as of version 0.10, the perl script generated from the
asp script should match almost exactly line by line, except in
cases of inlined includes, which add to the text of the original script,
pod comments which are entirely yanked out, and <% # comment %> style
comments which have a \n added to them so they still work.
If you would like to see the HTML preceding an error
while developing, consider setting the BufferingOn
config directive to 0.
$Response->End()
Sends result to client, and immediately exits script.
Automatically called at end of script, if not already called.
$Response->ErrorDocument($code, $uri)
API extension that allows for the modification the Apache
ErrorDocument at runtime. $uri may be a on site document,
off site URL, or string containing the error message.
This extension is useful if you want to have scripts
set error codes with $Response->{Status} like 401
for authentication failure, and to then control from
the script what the error message looks like.
For more information on the Apache ErrorDocument mechanism,
please see ErrorDocument in the CORE Apache settings,
and the Apache->custom_response() API, for which this method
is a wrapper.
$Response->Flush()
Sends buffered output to client and clears buffer.
$Response->Include($filename, @args)
This API extension calls the routine compiled from asp script
in $filename with the args @args. This is a direct translation
of the SSI tag
<!--#include file=$filename args=@args-->
Please see the SSI section for more on SSI in general.
This API extension was created to allow greater modularization
of code by allowing includes to be called with runtime
arguments. Files included are compiled once, and the
anonymous code ref from that compilation is cached, thus
including a file in this manner is just like calling a
perl subroutine.
$Response->Redirect($url)
Sends the client a command to go to a different url $url.
Script immediately ends.
$Response->TrapInclude($file, @args)
Calls $Response->Include() with same arguments as
passed to it, but instead traps the include output buffer
and returns it as as a perl scalar ref. This allows
one to postprocess the output buffer before sending
to the client.
my $string_ref = $Response->TrapInclude('file.inc');
$$string_ref =~ s/\s+/ /sg; # squash whitespace like Clean 1
print $$string_ref;
The scalar is returned as a referenece to save on what
might be a large string copy. You may dereference the scalar
with the $$string_ref notation.
$Response->Write($data)
Write output to the HTML page. <%=$data%> syntax is shorthand for
a $Response->Write($data). All final output to the client must at
some point go through this method.
$Request Object
The request object manages the input from the client browser, like
posts, query strings, cookies, etc. Normal return results are values
if an index is specified, or a collection / perl hash ref if no index
is specified. WARNING, the latter property is not supported in
ActiveState PerlScript, so if you use the hashes returned by such
a technique, it will not be portable.
A normal use of this feature would be to iterate through the
form variables in the form hash...
$form = $Request->Form();
for(keys %{$form}) {
$Response->Write("$_: $form->{$_}<br>\n");
}
Please see the ./site/eg/server_variables.htm asp file for this
method in action.
Note that if a form POST or query string contains duplicate
values for a key, those values will be returned through
normal use of the $Request object:
@values = $Request->Form('key');
but you can also access the internal storage, which is
an array reference like so:
$array_ref = $Request->{Form}{'key'};
@values = @{$array_ref};
Please read the PERLSCRIPT section for more information
on how things like $Request->QueryString() & $Request->Form()
behave as collections.
$Request->{TotalBytes}
The amount of data sent by the client in the body of the
request, usually the length of the form data. This is
the same value as $Request->ServerVariables('CONTENT_LENGTH')
$Request->BinaryRead($length)
Returns a scalar whose contents are the first $length bytes
of the form data, or body, sent by the client request.
This data is the raw data sent by the client, without any
parsing done on it by Apache::ASP.
$Request->ClientCertificate()
Not implemented.
$Request->Cookies($name [,$key])
Returns the value of the Cookie with name $name. If a $key is
specified, then a lookup will be done on the cookie as if it were
a query string. So, a cookie set by:
Set-Cookie: test=data1=1&data2=2
would have a value of 2 returned by $Request->Cookies('test','data2').
If no name is specified, a hash will be returned of cookie names
as keys and cookie values as values. If the cookie value is a query string,
it will automatically be parsed, and the value will be a hash reference to
these values.
When in doubt, try it out. Remember that unless you set the Expires
attribute of a cookie with $Response->Cookies('cookie', 'Expires', $xyz),
the cookies that you set will only last until you close your browser,
so you may find your self opening & closing your browser a lot when
debugging cookies.
For more information on cookies in ASP, please read $Response->Cookies()
$Request->FileUpload($form_field, $key)
API extension. The FileUpload interface to file upload data is
stabilized. The internal representation of the file uploads
is a hash of hashes, one hash per file upload found in
the $Request->Form() collection. This collection of collections
may be queried through the normal interface like so:
$Request->FileUpload('upload_file', 'ContentType');
$Request->FileUpload('upload_file', 'FileHandle');
$Request->FileUpload('upload_file', 'BrowserFile');
$Request->FileUpload('upload_file', 'Mime-Header');
$Request->FileUpload('upload_file', 'TempFile');
* note that TempFile must be use with the UploadTempFile
configuration setting.
The above represents the old slow collection interface,
but like all collections in Apache::ASP, you can reference
the internal hash representation more easily.
my $fileup = $Request->{FileUpload}{upload_file};
$fileup->{ContentType};
$fileup->{BrowserFile};
$fileup->{FileHandle};
$fileup->{Mime-Header};
$fileup->{TempFile};
$Request->Form($name)
Returns the value of the input of name $name used in a form
with POST method. If $name is not specified, returns a ref to
a hash of all the form data.
File upload data will be loaded into $Request->Form('file_field'),
where the value is the actual file name of the file uploaded, and
the contents of the file can be found by reading from the file
name as a file handle as in:
while(read($Request->Form('file_field_name'), $data, 1024)) {};
For more information, please see the CGI / File Upload section,
as file uploads are implemented via the CGI.pm module. An
example can be found in the installation
samples ./site/eg/file_upload.asp
$Request->QueryString($name)
Returns the value of the input of name $name used in a form
with GET method, or passed by appending a query string to the end of
a url as in http://localhost/?data=value.
If $name is not specified, returns a ref to a hash of all the query
string data.
$Request->ServerVariables($name)
Returns the value of the server variable / environment variable
with name $name. If $name is not specified, returns a ref to
a hash of all the server / environment variables data. The following
would be a common use of this method:
$env = $Request->ServerVariables();
# %{$env} here would be equivalent to the cgi %ENV in perl.
$Application Object
Like the $Session object, you may use the $Application object to
store data across the entire life of the application. Every
page in the ASP application always has access to this object.
So if you wanted to keep track of how many visitors there where
to the application during its lifetime, you might have a line
like this:
$Application->{num_users}++
The Lock and Unlock methods are used to prevent simultaneous
access to the $Application object.
$Application->Lock()
Locks the Application object for the life of the script, or until
UnLock() unlocks it, whichever comes first. When $Application
is locked, this guarantees that data being read and written to it
will not suddenly change on you between the reads and the writes.
This and the $Session object both lock automatically upon
every read and every write to ensure data integrity. This
lock is useful for concurrent access control purposes.
Be careful to not be too liberal with this, as you can quickly
create application bottlenecks with its improper use.
$Application->UnLock()
Unlocks the $Application object. If already unlocked, does nothing.
$Application->GetSession($sess_id)
This NON-PORTABLE API extension returns a user $Session given
a session id. This allows one to easily write a session manager if
session ids are stored in $Application during Session_OnStart, with
full access to these sessions for administrative purposes.
Be careful not to expose full session ids over the net, as they
could be used by a hacker to impersonate another user. So when
creating a session manager, for example, you could create
some other id to reference the SessionID internally, which
would allow you to control the sessions. This kind of application
would best be served under a secure web server.
The ./site/eg/global_asa_demo.asp script makes use of this routine
to display all the data in current user sessions.
$Application->SessionCount()
This NON-PORTABLE method returns the current number of active sessions,
in the application. This method is not implemented as part of the ASP
object model, but is implemented here because it is useful. In particular,
when accessing databases with license requirements, one can monitor usage
effectively through accessing this value.
This is a new feature as of v.06, and if run on a site with previous
versions of Apache::ASP, the count may take a while to synch up. To ensure
a correct count, you must delete all the current state files associated
with an application, usually in the $Global/.state directory.
$Server Object
The server object is that object that handles everything the other
objects do not. The best part of the server object for Win32 users is
the CreateObject method which allows developers to create instances of
ActiveX components, like the ADO component.
$Server->{ScriptTimeout} = $seconds
Not implemented. May never be. Please see the
Apache Timeout configuration option, normally in httpd.conf.
$Server->Config($setting)
API extension. Allows a developer to read the CONFIG
settings, like Global, GlobalPackage, StateDir, etc.
Currently implemented as a wrapper around
Apache->dir_config($setting)
$Server->CreateObject($program_id)
Allows use of ActiveX objects on Win32. This routine returns
a reference to an Win32::OLE object upon success, and nothing upon
failure. It is through this mechanism that a developer can
utilize ADO. The equivalent syntax in VBScript is
Set object = Server.CreateObject(program_id)
For further information, try 'perldoc Win32::OLE' from your
favorite command line.
$Server->Execute($file, @args)
New method from ASP 3.0, this does the same thing as
$Response->Include($file, @args)
and internally is just a wrapper for such. Seems like we
had this important functionality before the IIS/ASP camp!
$Server->GetLastError()
Not implemented, will likely not ever be because this is dependent
on how IIS handles errors and is not relevant in Apache.
$Server->HTMLEncode($string)
Returns an HTML escapes version of $string. &, ", >, <, are each
escapes with their HTML equivalents. Strings encoded in this nature
should be raw text displayed to an end user, as HTML tags become
escaped with this method. "
$Server->MapPath($url);
Given the url $url, absolute, or relative to the current executing script,
this method returns the equivalent filename that the server would
translate the request to, regardless or whether the request would be valid.
Only a $url that is relative to the host is valid. Urls like "." and
"/" are fine arguments to MapPath, but http://localhost would not be.
To see this method call in action, check out the sample ./site/eg/server.htm
script.
$Server->Mail(\%mail, %smtp_args);
With the Net::SMTP and Net::Config modules installed, which are part of the
perl libnet package, you may use this API extension to send email. The
\%mail hash reference that you pass in must have values for at least
the To, From, and Subject headers, and the Body of the mail message.
You could send an email like so:
$Server->Mail({
To => 'somebody@yourdomain.com.foobar',
From => 'youremail@yourdomain.com.foobar',
Subject => 'Subject of Email',
Body =>
'Body of message. '.
'You might have a lot to say here!',
Organization => 'Your Organization',
});
Any extra fields specified for the email will be interpreted
as headers for the email, so to send an HTML email, you
could set 'Content-Type' => 'text/html' in the above example.
If you have MailFrom configured, this will be the default
for the From header in your email. For more configuration
options like the MailHost setting, check out the CONFIG section.
The return value of this method call will be boolean for
success of the mail being sent.
If you would like to specially configure the Net::SMTP
object used internally, you may set %smtp_args and they
will be passed on when that object is initialized.
"perldoc Net::SMTP" for more into on this topic.
$Server->Transfer($file)
New method from ASP 3.0. Transfers control to another script.
The Response buffer will not be cleared automatically, so if you
want this to serve as a faster $Response->Redirect(), you will need to
call $Response->Clear() before calling this method.
This new script will take over current execution and
the current script will not continue to be executed
afterwards. It differs from Execute() because the
original script will not pick up where it left off.
$Server->URLEncode($string)
Returns the URL-escaped version of the string $string. +'s are substituted in
for spaces and special characters are escaped to the ascii equivalents.
Strings encoded in this manner are safe to put in urls... they are especially
useful for encoding data used in a query string as in:
$data = $Server->URLEncode("test data");
$url = "http://localhost?data=$data";
$url evaluates to http://localhost?data=test+data, and is a
valid URL for use in anchor <a> tags and redirects, etc.
$Server->RegisterCleanup($sub)
non-portable extension
Sets a subroutine reference to be executed after the script ends,
whether normally or abnormally, the latter occurring
possibly by the user hitting the STOP button, or the web server
being killed. This subroutine must be a code reference
created like:
$Server->RegisterCleanup(sub { $main::Session->{served}++; });
or
sub served { $main::Session->{served}++; }
$Server->RegisterCleanup(\&served);
The reference to the subroutine passed in will be executed.
Though the subroutine will be executed in anonymous context,
instead of the script, all objects will still be defined
in main::*, that you would reference normally in your script.
Output written to $main::Response will have no affect at
this stage, as the request to the www client has already completed.
Check out the ./site/eg/register_cleanup.asp script for an example
of this routine in action.
$Server->URL($url, \%params)
Will return a URL with %params serialized into a query
string like:
$url = $Server->URL('test.asp', { test => value });
which would give you a URL of test.asp?test=value
Used in conjunction with the SessionQuery* settings, the returned
URL will also have the session id inserted into the query string,
making this a critical part of that method of implementing
cookieless sessions. For more information on that topic
please read on the setting
in the CONFIG section, and the SESSIONS section too.