CGI and the World Wide Web
By providing a standard interface, the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) specification enables developers to use a variety of programming tools. CGI programs are the magic behind processing forms, looking up records in a database, sending email, building on-the-fly pages, and dozens of other tasks. Without CGI and its other server-side cousins, such as Active Server Pages or Java servlets, your Web site can have no memory that spans multiple users and multiple hits and can't function dynamically without serious programming. With server-side processing, all the functionality that depends on having such persistent data becomes possible.
CGI is a set of rules that governs how an HTTP server and another program running on ...
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