NAME

    CGI::Portal::Scripts - Extending CGI::Portal

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;
      .... 
    }

DESCRIPTION

    Applications based on CGI::Portal are build by creating modules that reside in the
    CGI::Portal::Scripts namespace and extend CGI::Portal::Scripts. These modules
    must provide a subroutine launch() that CGI::Portal calls as an object method to
    run your modules code.

    A subroutine new() is not necessary or helpful as you are extending CGI::Portal::Scripts.

    In your modules, 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>