PLP::HowTo - Some examples of common web things in PLP.
Additional Perl functionality is often available in modules. All of the modules used in this document are available (for free) at CPAN: http://search.cpan.org/
<: BEGIN { use CGI::Cookie; AddCookie( CGI::Cookie->new( -name => 'ID', -value => 123456, -domain => 'foo.com', -path => '/' )->as_string ); } :>
Your user ID is <:= $cookie{ID} :>
<: BEGIN { $header{Content_Type} = 'text/plain'; } :>
Use DBI, and alternatively, one of the many simplifying modules. Drivers for DBI are in the DBD:: namespace. DBI loads the driver automatically, but it has to be available. If you need a fast full-featured file-base database, use DBD::SQLite, it's the instant database :).
<: use DBIx::Simple; # and read its documentation for examples. :>
Use CGI.pm, which can be used with CGI::Upload to make things easier
<: use CGI; # and don't use %post in your PLP document. use CGI::Upload; # and read its documentation for examples. my $cgi = CGI->new; my $upload = CGI::Upload->new($cgi); ... :>
<: use LWP::Simple; my $page = get 'http://foo.com/bar.html'; :>
This only works with PLP under mod_perl. For CGI installations, it's useless.
<: use MIME::Base64; BEGIN { my $r = Apache->request; my ($type, $login) = split / /, $r->header_in('Authorization'); my ($user, $pass) = split /:/, decode_base64 $login, 2; unless ($user eq 'foo' and $pass eq 'bar') { $header{Status} = '401 Authorization Required'; $header{WWW_Authenticate} = 'Basic realm="Top secret :)"'; print '<h1>Authorization Required</h1>'; exit; } } :>
(It is possible to use something similar with CGI, but it's not easy. Headers are communicated to your script via %ENV, and having credentials in there would be insecure, so Apache removes them. To get $ENV{HTTP_AUTHORIZATION}, you need to recompile Apache with -DSECURITY_HOLE_PASS_AUTHORIZATION, or use mod_rewrite to set the environment variable. Short answer: just use mod_perl.)
%ENV
$ENV{HTTP_AUTHORIZATION}
If you have good, simple examples of how to do common things with PLP, please send them! <perl@shiar.org>
To install PLP, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm PLP
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install PLP
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.