29.8. Running CGI Programs
CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface and is a standard method for web servers to run external programs, pass them details of a browser's request, and read back any content that the program generates. CGI programs are one of the simplest ways of adding dynamic pages to your web server, and are relatively easy to set up and develop. Server-side includes (covered in Section 29.9 “Setting Up Server-Side Includes”) are even simpler, but very limited in what they can do.
A CGI program can be written in any language as long as it follows certain rules. The most common language is Perl, but C, Python, PHP, or any other language that can access environment variables and produce output can be used. You can even write shell ...
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