Perl/CGI shop

[Peteypan]

Hi,

Just to save anyone reading this that isn't interested- the following amounts to a newbie request for good perl/CGI tutorials to help me fix some problems my employer is have with their online shop. Here goes...

I recently started as a part time web developer/admin assistant for some work experience while I'm still at uni. They are having some trouble with their online shop, and seem to have mistaken me for someone capable of fixing it.

The problems are relatively trivial; the emails the application generates for the customers/ shipping company aren't accurate and the tax isn't included in the order confirmation. Its just a matter of finding the relevant code and fixing the bug. However I've spent some time trailing through the cgi bin and I cant find what I need.

So, I'm looking for some introductory material on CGI and Perl e commerce solutions to help me understand the structure of what I'm looking at, any ideas? My problems are basic things like not knowing where the email scripts are, if all the code is in the cgi bin folder or if its elsewhere as well.

I have found O'reilly 'Programming in Perl' on a shelf in work, so that should help me get to grips with the language. It's the 2nd edition though, so I wonder if it's possibly too out of date to be useful.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and any ideas or advice would be appreciated.


Peter

 

[angelwatt]

My problems are basic things like not knowing where the email scripts are, if all the code is in the cgi bin folder or if its elsewhere as well.

People won't likely be able to guess how the files are organized since there's numerous possibilities. Depending on the server type there's files that should tell you the directory for scripts. For the Apache web server there's a httpd.conf file that holds its configuration. This would be a good place to start to find all of the called script files.

I have found O'reilly 'Programming in Perl' on a shelf in work, so that should help me get to grips with the language. It's the 2nd edition though, so I wonder if it's possibly too out of date to be useful.

2nd edition should be fine. Perl has been a fairly stable language for a while so I don't think that should be an issue. The only thing missing may be discussion on libraries added after its release, but there's plenty of on-line information about them.

One can only hope that the people who created the scripts documented them, but that may be too much to hope for. If any snippets of Perl boggle you, you can try posting them here for an explanation. I've used Perl a little bit so may be able to assist.

 

[Peteypan]

People won't likely be able to guess how the files are organized since there's numerous possibilities. Depending on the server type there's files that should tell you the directory for scripts. For the Apache web server there's a httpd.conf file that holds its configuration. This would be a good place to start to find all of the called script files.



2nd edition should be fine. Perl has been a fairly stable language for a while so I don't think that should be an issue. The only thing missing may be discussion on libraries added after its release, but there's plenty of on-line information about them.

One can only hope that the people who created the scripts documented them, but that may be too much to hope for. If any snippets of Perl boggle you, you can try posting them here for an explanation. I've used Perl a little bit so may be able to assist.

Thanks for the advice.

I'm glad that book is ok, I'll have a read through it after the holidays. There doesn't appear to be any documentation unfortunately, just some cryptic comments amongst the code.

Nobody aware of any 'how to build an online shop using Perl/CGI'?

... Or even better a 'how to fix someone else's shop they built using Perl/CGI'?