How to Use CGI to Execute Applications on a Web Server

If you want to deploy your applications on the Web without making any special demands of the user machine, you can redesign them to use a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) front end and the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) Internet communication standard. This option gives the most flexibility and platform independence, but it also requires the most work.

To deploy your applications on the Internet using HTML and CGI, your steps are:

1. Create an HTML interface to your application. (This way your application can be read directly by your users' browsers.)

2. Write a CGI program that will read CGI variables, perform the processing task or launch a separate program to do so, and generate HTML output from the results. This program, also known as a script, will be executed by your Web server.

3. Set up a Web site

4. Create a link to your CGI program

5. Configure your Web server software

Note: If desired, you can display an HTML interface using the WEB-BROWSER control. Then the HTML interface can interact with CGI programs on the Web server.

ACUCOBOL-GT Version 4.0 and later has been designed to simplify CGI programming dramatically. Although you can write CGI programs with any version of ACUCOBOL-GT, this chapter describes how to take advantage of Version 4.0 and beyond's Internet features.