I have created a simple HTML and Perl test to figure out how to properly get a browser to re-Post form data to a new URL. The raison d'etre for this test is to figure out the best way to re-Post the shopping cart order form data to PayPal after my Perl script has saved the order etc information to a database.
The test consists of three simple files: 1) an HTML file containing a form, 2) a Perl script called by the form which performs the redirection to 3) a Perl script which displays the form data.
Where I am at now is when I only use
print ("Location: http://briarhilldesign.com/cgi-bin/showdata.pl\n");
print ("Content-type: text/html\n\n"); I get redirected to the final Perl script but with no data. When I also use an HTTP redirection status line, e.g.,
print("HTTP/1.0 303 See Other\n"); I get an Internal Server Error:
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@briarhilldesign.torontogardenbook.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/2.2.11 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.11 OpenSSL/0.9.8i DAV/2 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at briarhilldesign.com Port 80
Here is the code for the three files.
redirect.html
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
<title>HTML redirect test</title>
<style>
input#submit {
display: block;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<form id="redirect-form" action="http://briarhilldesign.com/cgi-bin/redirect.pl" method="post">
<fieldset>
<legend>Data to redirect</legend>
<label for="first_name">First Name</label><input id="first_name" name="first_name" value="John" />
<label for="last_name">Last Name</label><input id="last_name" name="last_name" value="Smith" />
<h3>Choose the redirect method:</h3>
<input type="radio" id="none" name="redirect-method" value="none" /><label for="location">No code</label>
<input type="radio" id="300" name="redirect-method" value="300" /><label for="300 multiple choices">300 multiple choices</label>
<input type="radio" id="301" name="redirect-method" value="301" /><label for="301 moved permanently">301 moved permanently</label>
<input type="radio" id="302" name="redirect-method" value="302" /><label for="302 found">302 found</label>
<input type="radio" id="303" name="redirect-method" value="303" /><label for="303 see other">303 see other</label>
<input type="radio" id="307" name="redirect-method" value="307" /><label for="307 temporary redirect">307 temporary redirect</label>
<input type="submit" id="submit"/>
</fieldset>
</form>
</body>
</html>
In this HTML file one chooses from six possible kinds of redirection.
redirect.pl
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
# redirect.pl -- redirects to showdata.pl using the indicated method
BEGIN {my $homedir = ( getpwuid($>) )[7];my @user_include;foreach my $path (@INC) { if ( -d $homedir . '/perl' . $path )
{push @user_include, $homedir . '/perl' . $path;}} unshift @INC, @user_include;}
use warnings;
use strict;
use CGI qw(:standard);
use CGI::Carp qw(warningsToBrowser fatalsToBrowser);
my $form1 = new CGI;
my $RedirectMethod = $form1->param('redirect-method');
for ($RedirectMethod) {
if (/none/) {} # No code sent
if (/300/) {print("HTTP/1.0 300 Multiple Choices\n");}
if (/301/) {print("HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently\n");}
if (/302/) {print("HTTP/1.0 302 Found\n");}
if (/303/) {print("HTTP/1.0 303 See Other\n");}
if (/307/) {print("HTTP/1.0 307 Temporary Redirect\n");}
}
# Rest of HTTP Response
print ("Location: http://briarhilldesign.com/cgi-bin/showdata.pl\n");
print ("Content-type: text/html\n\n");
# TRY am HTML body here later, if necessary
print q~<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
<title>You are being redirected</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Redirection</h1>
<p>You are being redirected. Version 11.</p>
</body>
</html>
~;
This Perl script performs one of six different kinds of redirection depending on the value of the form variable 'redirect-method'.
showdata.pl
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
# showdata.pl -- displays form data
BEGIN {my $homedir = ( getpwuid($>) )[7];my @user_include;foreach my $path (@INC) { if ( -d $homedir . '/perl' . $path )
{push @user_include, $homedir . '/perl' . $path;}} unshift @INC, @user_include;}
use warnings;
use strict;
use CGI qw(:standard);
use CGI::Carp qw(warningsToBrowser fatalsToBrowser);
my $form1 = new CGI;
my $FirstName = $form1->param('first_name');
my $LastName = $form1->param('last_name');
my $RedirectMethod = $form1->param('redirect-method');
print (qq~Content-Type: text/html
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
<title>HTML redirect test</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Data received</h1>
<p>First Name: $FirstName</p>
<p>Last Name: $LastName</p>
<p>Redirect Method: $RedirectMethod</p>
</body>
</html>
~);
This Perl script displays the form data passed to it.
Any help getting the HTTP status line to work so I can redirect and induce the browser to re-Post the data it has just posted would be greatly appreciated.
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