Beginners Guide to CGI in
Perl
Your First Program!

Nathan Poole
Let's open MS-DOS and type the
following
cd C:Perlin.
We do all our Perl work in C:Perlin so we can keep track of our
files. Next, type Edit 1.pl which will open MS-DOS's text
editor. Type the following on your screen.
#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Hello World!";
Next, save that file and exit (FILE->SAVE --
FILE->EXIT) and type perl 1.pl.
No prizes for guessing what this does. By now you should have the
text "Hello World!" on your screen. Not too difficult yet is it?
A little more advanced
Now that we've used your perl path,
and we've used your print statement, let's try using a variable ($)
with an if statement. Type edit 2.pl at your MS-DOS prompt
and type the following in.
#!/usr/bin/perl
$myname = "Nathan Poole";
if ($myname eq "Nathan Poole") {
print "Yes, it's Nathan
alright";
}
Go to file, then save, then exit. You should now be back at the
DOS prompt. Type perl 2.pl. WOW! It worked! You just made 2 programs
in about 10 minutes. Not bad for a beginner. Until next week when I
conclude this article with a tutorial on creating your first CGI
program, let me know if you had any problems with this tutorial, did
everything work out for you? Too easy? Too hard? My mailbox is
always open.
« Back: Introduction
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Ahead

1 Introduction
2
What can
CGI do for me?
3 Perl / perl
Tools
4 A Few
Lessons
5 Your First
Program!