I want to port some graphics applications in C++ which compile to Windows Executables to run as WEB apps.

I don't want to throw away all the code I've written in C++, so it seems to me that Microsoft Azure would be prefect.

My idea is that I learn to make the WEB interface in the appropriate WEB language, and it will send commands to the EXE which will create the images.

Anything wrong with this idea?

Read about cgi programs, a short tutorial is here

Here is another tutorial for cgi. You can go through this.

I know about CGI, played with it many years ago, but I was hoping for a more up to date technology...

I don't think there is anything else in C or C++. Use a different language, such as C# or CLI/C++ (both .net languages). I think php is used for most server-side programming.

I haven't done it in quite a while, but my recollection is that you can bypass setting up Server Side Includes and CGI extensions in Apache files, which can be a real pain for people like me who aren't very knowledgable in that, and still have the ability to execute programs written in C++ (or any other executable) simply by calling them from a perl or php script.

http://perl101.org/external-programs.html
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php

This means you don't have to port your C++ code into Perl or PHP. Just as you can use the system or execvp commands to run an external program written in any language through a C program, you can use the exec command in Perl or PHP to run an external program written in any language.

Thanks all for the replies. I'm at an early stage of planning, but I want to port a C++ EXE to the WEB. CGI is a possibility, as is calling and EXE from PHP, or maybe both. It is just that maybe services like Azure ane EC2 claim to handle the scheduling and distribution of resources automatically.

Still, as I say, I'm at an early stage...Azure seems very complicated I must say, but I'll carry on for a day or so to see what I can do/understand.

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