metacard for CGI

[Mark Luetzelschwab]

>Andu wrote:
-the main disadvantage you see in using metatalk/rev for CGI scripting
*besides some difficulty with debugging*

As someone who took a look at MC and decided to go with ASP..here are 
some things that I would really miss if I went back to MC (in the 
order of importance). Everything that I mention can (is) be done 
using cmc.exe - but its a pain.

1. Request.Form / Request.QueryString
	These allow me to grab the form data by name and any items in 
the query string.  No parsing necessary.

	Possible Syntax:
		http://www.metacard.com?userid=10101
		Request_QueryString("user_id") would return 10101

		Similarly, if you posted the data instead of putting 
it in the URL..
		Request_Form("user_id") would return 10101

If these got separated far, far away from the read from stdin, you 
could write a debugger far, far easier by simply simulating the input 
and output.


2. Server Variables
	Is it a POST, GET, who from..

	Possible Syntax:
		Request_ServerVariables("REQUEST_METHOD")


3. Session Variables
	Not really necessary if MC is acting as a server to other MC 
clients, but very necessary for any kind of web applications that 
have more than one page -- using hidden form elements is the other 
option, but a pain.  Session variables stay alive between pages - but 
are only available to the person who started the session.

	Possible Syntax:
		Session_Set("variable_name",10101)
		put Session_Get("variable_name") would return 10101


4. ODBC
	Sure, MC can be a decent database - but its really nice to be 
able to do the database connections.  All I really need is a 
connection, a way to execute queries, and a table of the outputs. 
Simple enough ;)


4. XML support, though I'm still whacking away at an xml_lib, so that 
might be a non-issue.

Hope this helps.

-ml

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