4.0 engine as an executable shell/cgi

[Richard Gaskin]

Bernard wrote:

> The 4.0 engine does not work from a command line at all i.e. as a
> shell script processor (at least I can get no output from it).
> Somewhere (maybe it was in the text file about the engine) it states
> that this new lack of functionality was a side-effect of enabling the
> engine to produce revlets.  Seems like a strange explanation, but
> there you go...
>
> It means anyone who does use that kind of functionality should keep
> old copies of Rev around.  And with Rev version 4+ it will no longer
> be possible to use Rev as a cgi program.  Has the apache module been
> released so that Rev can be used on one's own server?

The note was in the v4.0 Engine Change Log:

------------------------------------------------------

Standalone Building
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The method by which standalone building is done has changed in this 
release. Standalones are now built in such a way that they behave much 
better as executable files on all three platforms. In particular, 
Revolution standalone executables can now:
   - be digitally signed using the various OS tools on Windows and Mac OS X
   - have arbitrarily sized document and application ICO files used on 
Windows
   - have their resources edited on Windows
   - be used with various third-party executable processing tools (such 
as compressors, trial run makers, network key wrappers etc.)

In order to achieve this, it has been necessary to implement the core 
operation of standalone building in the (ide) engine. This means that 
the standalone engine provided in the distribution is no longer 
generally useful as anything other than the shell which is used to form 
the standalone. In particular, it cannot be used to build standalones 
using the method previously used nor can it be used as a generic command 
line engine.
------------------------------------------------------


Kevin has stated here his intention of providing a free engine for CGI 
use for v4 forward as has always been the case, but given the complexity 
of the RevWeb plugin I can understand the delay in delivering this.

In the meantime I've continued using the v3.5 engine as a CGI, and given 
that most of the v4 changes affect things that don't come into play in a 
faceless mode I would imagine v3.5 would be suitable for most command 
line-driven projects.

Is there something specific to v4 your project needs which would 
preclude using the v3.5 runtime engine?  Maybe we can brainstorm a 
workaround to get you going.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  Rev training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com
  revJournal blog: http://revjournal.com/blog.irv