Perl for Web Site Management (Paperback)

Preface

1. Getting Your Tools in Order
Open Source Versus Proprietary Software
Evaluating a Hosting Provider
Web Hosting Alternatives
Getting Started with SSH/Telnet
Meet the Unix Shell
Network Troubleshooting
A Suitable Text Editor

2. Getting Started with Perl
Finding Perl on Your System
Creating the 'Hello, world!' Script
The Dot Slash Thing
Unix File Permissions
Running (and Debugging) the Script
Perl Documentation
Perl Variables
A Bit More About Quoting
'Hello, world!' as a CGI Script

3. Running a Form-to-Email Gateway
Checking for CGI.pm
Creating the HTML Form
The
Tag's ACTION Attribute
The mail_form.cgi Script
Warnings via Perl's -w Switch
The Configuration Section
Invoking CGI.pm
foreach Loops
if Statements
Filehandles and Piped Output
die Statements
Outputting the Message
Testing the Script

4. Power Editing with Perl
Being Careful
Renaming Files
Modifying HREF Attributes
Writing the Modified Files Back to Disk

5. Parsing Text Files
The 'Dirty Data' Problem
Required Features
Obtaining the Data
Parsing the Data
Outputting Sample Data
Making the Script Smarter
Parsing the Category File
Testing the Script Again

6. Generating HTML
The Modified make_exhibit.plx Script
Changes to &parse_exhibitor
Adding Categories to the Company Listings
Creating Directories
Generating the HTML Pages
Generating the Top-level Page

7. Regular Expressions Demystified
Delimiters
Trailing Modifiers
The Search Pattern
Taking It for a Spin
Thinking Like a Computer

8. Parsing Web Access Logs
Log File Structure
Converting IP Addresses
The Log-Analysis Script
Different Log File Formats
Storing the Data
The 'Visit' Data Structure

9. Date Arithmetic
Date/Time Conversions
Using the Time::Local Module
Caching Date Conversions
Scoping via Anonymous Blocks
Using a BEGIN Block

10. Generating a Web Access Report
The &new_visit and &add_to_visit Subroutines
Generating the Report
Showing the Details of Each Visit
Reporting the Most Popular Pages
Fancier Sorting
Mailing the Report
Using cron

11. Link Checking
Maintaining Links
Finding Files with File::Find
Looking for Links
Extracting
Putting It All Together
Using CPAN
Checking Remote Links
A Proper Link Checker

12. Running a CGI Guestbook
The Guestbook Script
Taint Mode
Guestbook Preliminaries
Untainting with Backreferences
File Locking
Guestbook File Permissions

13. Running a CGI Search Tool
Downloading and Compiling SWISH-E
Indexing with SWISH-E
Running SWISH-E from the Command Line
Running SWISH-E via a CGI Script

14. Using HTML Templates
Using Templates
Reading Fillings Back In
Rewriting an Entire Site

15. Generating Links
The Docbase Concept
The CyberFair Site's Architecture
The Script's Data Structure
Using Data::Dumper
Creating Anonymous Hashes and Arrays
Automatically Generating Links
Inserting the Links

16. Writing Perl Modules
A Simple Module Template
Installing the Module
The Cyberfair::Page Module

17. Adding Pages via CGI Script
Why Add Pages with a CGI Script?
A Script for Creating HTML Documents
Controlling a Multistage CGI Script
Using Parameterized Links
Building a Form
Posting Pages from the CGI Script
Running External Commands with system and Backticks
Race Conditions
File Locking
Adding Link Checking

18. Monitoring Search Engine Positioning
Installing WWW::Search
A Single-Search Results Tool
A Multisearch Results Tool
The map Function

19. Keeping Track of Users
Stateless Transactions
Identifying Individual Users
Basic Authentication
Automating User Registration
Storing Data on the Server
The Register Script
The Verification Script

20. Storing Data in DBM Files
Data Storage Options
The tie Function
A DBM Example Script
Blocking Versus Nonblocking Behavior
Storing Multilevel Data in DBM Files
An MLDBM-Using Registration Script
An MLDBM-Using Verification Script

21. Where to Go Next
Unix System Administration
Programming
Apache Server Administration and mod_perl
Relational Databases
Advocacy

Index