Revolution as a cgi application?

[Greg Saylor]

>Message: 4
>Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 14:51:09 -0400
>Subject: Re: Revolution as a cgi application?
>From: Troy Rollins <troy at rpsystems.net>
>To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
>Reply-To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
>
>
>On Monday, April 22, 2002, at 02:34 PM, Edwin Haskell wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know if it is possible to use revolution on a PC as a cgi 
>> application similar to what can be done with Hypercard in conjunction 
>> with  MacHTTP or WebStar using Apple Events?  I'm assuming it works on 
>> the Mac with OS9     (haven't tried it yet). What about on OSX with 
>> Apache?
>
>There has been an ongoing thread regarding this in this list (you can 
>probably check the archives on the runrev site).
>
>The bottom line is yes. I haven't tried this in OSX yet, but given that 
>it is fully functional in Apache on Linux, I wouldn't expect any 
>problems.
>
>HTH
>
>--
>Troy
>RPSystems
>www.rpsystems.net
>


I've been playing with this quite a bit and can definately confirm that
on any of the various UNIX-like versions (Darwin, *BSD, Solaris, etc)
that it is possible to use the metacard engine as a general-purpose
scripting tool... Since you can do this using the "!#" method, it can be
used as a cgi-script very easily....

However, there are some drawbacks which you might need to be aware of
which have been elegantly solved by other scripting languages (such as
PERL)...  Basically what it amounts to is that the metacard engine on the
various versions of UNIX (OS-X excluded because you can use the VXCMD
method of adding a resource fork to your stack and use external
functions) does not appear to be extensible in any way...  The only
method for utilizing external scripts is by running system commands,
which has some pretty heavy performance issues especially if you are
doing any sort of database work.....

In Windows apparently all you have to do is copy the DLL files into the
defaultFolder (answer defaultFolder helped me figure out what this was..
;-))...  It does not seem to support any of the newer MS "technology"
(but then again, since MS keeps changing the rules of the game how could
you possibly keep up with it all?)....

In MacOS you need to do some really hokey thing with adding a resource
fork to your stack... (It's very odd to me coming from a UNIX perspective)....

In UNIX there is not any way that I can percieve to do this and since for
the scripting part you need to use the Darwin engine (the OS-X engine
does not seem to be able to be executed from the command line?)...

So, in short, know what you are really trying to accomplish because, like
every tool, Revolution may not be the best choice for what you are
specifically trying to do....

By the way, if anyone knows (or even wants to speculate) about how my
information may not be correct about the UNIX/Darwin side of this I would
really appreciate any insight you might have....  I would like to be
wrong about my analysis... ;-)

- Greg