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CGI.pm (3.46)

Well, I just want to say three cheers for the maintainer, who has spent the last 10+ years keeping CGI alive and kicking. Although in general the Perl web development world has moved on to other things, there was a time where a handful of modules were Perl's claim to fame and CGI was one of them. Back when I first started programming with Perl I doubt I started many applications without saying "use CGI;" at the very top of my script. Along with DBI, the various DBDs I could quickly and easily build a database backed website and I didn't need to spend a ton of money on licensing fees or training.

You can make fun of the documentation if you want, but don't forget there was a time not many years ago that if you wanted programming API documentation you had to pay for it, and usually the books were not cheap, nor were the classes inexpensive. CGI was a gift to Perl and it's one of the main reasons Perl became such an important language for web development.

john napiorkowski - 2009-09-09 12:38:03
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CGI.pm (3.44)

Although CGI.pm is a "core module" included with the distribution of Perl, it has an ill-thought out, cluttered interface. Unfortunately, this interface can't be changed, since so much is built on top of it.

The documentation deserves special mention for being unreadable and unhelpful. Example: one of the basic functions of CGI.pm is to read from STDIN. Where is this even mentioned in the documentation? Absolutely nowhere. Instead, if you search for the words "STDIN" or "standard input", you'll find a lot of obscure claptrap, and not even one mention of the vitally important fact that using this module means that it reads standard input to EOF. Another reviewer mentions that the idea is to write gibberish documentation and then put the real documentation in a for-sale book in order to make money. That's a very cynical comment but it may even be true in this case.

Added to the problems of dealing with the horrible instructions are the inclusion of a set of fancy and yet irritating HTML generation routines. This is a design mistake. Dealing with the CGI is a completely different task from HTML generation, and HTML generation routines have no business in a CGI module.

The maintenance of the module is also questionable. The source code is a hodge-podge of patches and it is filled with "dead" comments which no longer apply to the code. Copyright notices seem to be out of date.

However, despite the negativity expressed above, which was created by the frustration of dealing with this module's documentation as a beginner Perl programmer, I want to qualify this review by saying that the code DOES ACTUALLY WORK, unlike a lot of the imitator CGI modules on CPAN.

BKB - 2009-05-23 21:59:18
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CGI.pm (3.42)

Ignore the troll below (or above, depending on the number of edits the troll make) and just RTFM. The correct argument to pass a document encoding to CGI::header() is the "-charset" parameter.

See the "-utf8" pragma to enable auto-utf8 on input parameters.

Use a template module (Template Toolkit for example) for HTML generation not CGI.pm' s template interface.

Jonathan Rockway' s review does not make any sense either. You can still use CGI.pm for input processing and uploads and it is suitable for simple applications. Also it is still maintained and new fetures added if needed and stable.

Edit: It looks like the troll (BKB) is coward enough to not mention his/her edit and replaced the old one completely with a more nonsense review.

Burak Gürsoy - 2008-06-23 14:29:22
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CGI.pm (3.37)

This is a reply to BKB's post fon 2008-06-23 00:55:33.

BKB: There are plenty of things other than CGI.pm. CGI.pm is not for new apps, it's for keeping legacy apps working. New Perl web applications use frameworks like Catalyst, Jifty, Continuity, CGI::Application, Mason, etc. You should take a look at one of those (Catalyst is the most popular) instead.

Jonathan Rockway - 2008-06-23 04:45:14
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CGI.pm (3.29)

good

barani - 2007-10-11 22:25:25
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CGI.pm (3.25)

God bless CGI.pm and its author(s). It has proved itself time and again as an outstanding gift to the Perl user base, the CGI programmer's best friend.

Tommy Butler - 2007-02-22 09:37:36
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CGI.pm (3.25)

Love CGI.pm but the documentation is ridiculous. Is it in line with open source principles to withhold documentation so that you can sell a book?

miguel - 2006-11-27 08:43:01
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CGI.pm (3.20)

Clearly the standard in web programming, CGI.pm uses some innovative techniques to handle unique problems. Though the module is rather bloated, lighter modules refractoring its functionality exhist as a result of Lincoln's hard work.

Gyan Kapur - 2006-07-05 07:13:53
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CGI.pm (3.15)

The module's ubiquity makes it a very useful tool, but it's let down by it's many modes of operation for backwards compatibility, and poor documentation of the other modules in the distribution.

Benjamin Smith - 2005-12-22 08:19:27
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CGI.pm (3.00)

Great module.

Vlad Tepes - 2003-09-02 20:29:25
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CGI / CGI.pm (3.00)

Thorough. Very thorough.

It would be nice if the HTML generation methods weren't in there, but they have their use sometimes (though I'm more inclined to pull in TT or similar). The best thing about this module is that it's omnipresent. Not always a recent version, but there's _some_ version.

Iain Truskett - 2003-08-19 23:40:22
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CGI.pm (2.99)

If you are not using mod_perl, then you should be using CGI.pm.

use CGI or die;

Jeff Anderson - 2003-08-18 06:02:57
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CGI.pm (2.99)

Its CGI.pm; its great!

Joseph F. Ryan - 2003-08-16 16:55:25
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CGI.pm (2.99)

Okay, it's a great module. With great documentation. Everyone knows that. But my beef with CGI.pm is that it tries to do too much. There are so many things you could do with this module and it's so big. Also it would be nice if there were some more built-in security features turned on by default... Anyway, why are you reading this? You are still going to use this module no matter what. :)

jacques - 2003-08-15 23:24:33
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