Sendmail CGI generates Apache error

[Alex Rice]

On Nov 29, 2003, at 8:30 PM, katir at hindu.org wrote:

> ... and there are others on the team here that think forms are a bad 
> way to make people contact you... I myself don't see why exactly, 
> since you can make the form look nearly identical to an email client 
> new message window... and only if you start using the web page for 
> other things, asking for more then the needful info just to let them 
> email you... etc. how is it that different than having the browser 
> kick up your email client?

That's just it: you have no idea what my email client looks like. :-)

Often what I notice is:

1) composition textarea is way too small
2) subject line is absent, or is a pulldown menu with only a couple of 
choices
3) form action is coded with stupid javascript that only works on IE on 
Windows or something.

> and "You *always* have to send a valid http header of some kind back 
> to the browser, when writing a CGI."
>
> is the second mango. I didn't know that... I thought if the cgi 
> invoked a process on the server, that was the end of it.

Glad to help.

BTW for a CGI that only exists to do something like send mail, a good 
trick to use is the Location: header to redirect the browser to 
somewhere else on the site, like a thankyou page.

put "Location: thanks.html" & crlf & crlf

I think technically that example is not exactly correct, but has always 
worked for me.

Alex Rice <alex at mindlube.com> | Mindlube Software | 
<http://mindlube.com>

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable  -Ani DiFranco