NAME

CGI::Portal::Scripts - Building Applications

SYNOPSIS

    package CGI::Portal::Scripts::some_name;

    use CGI::Portal::Scripts;
    use vars qw(@ISA);

    @ISA = qw(CGI::Portal::Scripts);

    1;

    sub launch {
      my $self = shift;
      .... 
    }

Internal Redirects

    package CGI::Portal::Scripts::some_name;

    use CGI::Portal::Scripts;
    use CGI::Portal::Scripts::other_name;
    use vars qw(@ISA);

    @ISA = qw(CGI::Portal::Scripts);

    1;

    sub launch {
      my $self = shift;
      .... 

      $self->CGI::Portal::Scripts::other_name::launch;
      return;
    }

DESCRIPTION

CGI::Portal applications are build by creating classes that reside in the CGI::Portal::Scripts and CGI::Portal::Controls namespaces and extend CGI::Portal::Scripts. These classes must provide a subroutine launch() that CGI::Portal calls as an object method to run your code.

Classes in the CGI::Portal::Scripts handle the assembly of pages, classes in the CGI::Portal::Controls namespace handle form submissions.

CGI::Portal::Controls are called by providing input parameter "Submit" or "submit" and should provide internal redirects to call a CGI::Portal::Scripts class.

In your classes, do not print() or exit(). Instead of "print"ing append to $self->{'out'} or $self->{'cookies'} and instead of "exit"ing, "return" from launch().

Extending CGI::Portal::Scripts, gives you access to an object with the following attributes.

ATTRIBUTES

conf

$self->{'conf'} references a hash containing all values as set in the startup script.

in

$self->{'in'} references a hash containing all input parameters, stripped off any HTML tags.

user

$self->{'user'} is set by $self->authenticate_user() if logon succeeds.

rdb

$self->{'rdb'} is a CGI::Portal::RDB database object holding a database handle.

out

$self->{'out'} supposed to collect all output.

cookies

$self->{'cookies'} collects cookie headers you might want to set. It is also used for Sessions, so you might want to append to it.

FUNCTIONS

authenticate_user

$self->authenticate_user() takes no arguments and does not return anything. It sets $self->{'user'} and starts a session if user logon succeeds. If user logon fails it writes the HTML for a logon form to $self->{'out'}. It also maintains the sessions during subsequent calls.

    $self->authenticate_user();
    return unless $self->{'user'};
    ....

logoff

$self->logoff() takes no arguments and does not return anything. It removes the current users session id from the database and unsets the session cookie.

RDB->exec

$self->{'rdb'}->exec($sql) is an object method for the database object. It takes a SQL statement as argument and returns a DBI statement handle.

The database handle can be directly retrieved from $self->{'rdb'}{'dbh'}.

RDB->escape

$self->{'rdb'}->escape(@values) takes an array of SQL values. It uses DBI's quote() on those values and returns them as a string seperated by commas.

AUTHOR

Alexander David cpanalpo@yahoo.com

cpanm CGI::Portal

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install CGI::Portal