W3-mSQL

W3-mSQL is actually a single CGI program called w3-msql. The program filters HTML pages that have embedded W3-mSQL commands and sends the resultant purified HTML to the client. W3-mSQL commands are written in a custom programming language called Lite. Lite is in many ways similar to Perl and C, but is specifically designed to interact with the mSQL database. A quick reference of Lite functions is included at the end of Chapter 18. To accomplish this, the path of the W3-mSQL enhanced HTML file is added to the w3-msql URL, e.g. http://www.me.com/cgi-bin/w3-msql/~me/mypage.html.

Within the HTML file, anything within the <! > tag is interpreted as Lite commands. For instance, the Lite equivalent of the “Hello world!” program would be:

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Hello world!</title></head>
<BODY>
<!
   echo("Hello world!");
>
</body></html>

Anything in the file that is not within <! > tags is left as plain HTML.

mSQL installs the w3-msql program automatically, so all you should have to do is place it into your cgi-bin directory and you will be set to go.

W3-Auth

W3-Auth is a mechanism for providing security to W3-mSQL driven pages. It is included with W3-mSQL and is installed automatically along with mSQL. With W3-Auth you can create a hierarchy of users and groups that are allowed to use various W3-mSQL enhanced pages.

W3-Auth works on the idea of using three separate levels of security access: user, group, and area. A user is a single name that usually refers to a single person, much like ...

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