6.9.2 A_CGI Environment Variable

The A_CGI environment variable enables you to ensure that the runtime does not perform user interface functions when your application is running as a CGI program.

When A_CGI is set to "1" in the environment, the runtime suppresses warning messages that are normally displayed in a message box. When the runtime shuts down due to an error that is not handled by the COBOL program, it constructs an HTML page containing the shutdown message and sends it to the standard output stream before terminating. As with any environment variable, A_CGI may affect other COBOL programs in addition to your CGI program.

Note: As an alternative to using this environment variable, you may configure your Web server to execute the runtime with the command line option "-f". This option is described in User's Guide section 2.2.

For more information on writing CGI programs, refer to the separate Acucorp booklet titled A Programmer's Guide to the Internet.