Re: [MacPerl-WebCGI] ".pl" vs. ".cgi"

At 1:34 PM -0500 2/24/01, tedd wrote:
>I have noticed that many publications et al often use the suffix of ".pl" and
>".cgi" interchangeably. I also notice that I can place the identical text on
>a sever and add either suffix without changing its operation. So, what's the
>difference between the suffix of ".pl" and ".cgi"?


Partly, it's a matter of an evolving convention for naming Perl programs.

But primarily, this is a web server configuration issue. In the 
config for the popular web server Apache (on flavors of UNIX, 
including what comes with Mac OS X), for example, the system 
administrator may set the acceptable suffices for CGI scripts. On 
another widely used web server, an NT using Microsoft's IIS web 
server, the CGI suffix (at least for Perl CGI scripts) is always 
'.pl', AFAIK -- but perhaps I haven't worked with an NT sys admin who 
cared to tweak this.

So in the experience you describe above, it happened that the server 
was configured to accept both of the suffices you tried.

1;
-- 

   - Bruce

__bruce_van_allen__santa_cruz_ca__