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iPlanet Web Server, FastTrack Edition NSAPI Programmer's Guide



Appendix F   Server-Parsed HTML Tags


HTML files can contain tags that are executed on the server. This appendix discusses the standard server-side tags you can include in HTML files.

For information about defining your own server-side tags in iPlanet Web Server 4.x, see the Programmer's Guide for iPlanet Web Server.

Note: The server parses server-side tags only if server-side parsing has been activated. Use the "Parse HTML" page in the Content Management tab of the Server Manager interface to enable or disable the parsing of server-side tags.

When you activate parsing, you need to be sure that the following directives are added to your obj.conf file (Note that native threads are turned off.):

Init funcs="shtml_init,shtml_send" shlib="install_dir/bin/https/bin/Shtml.dll" NativeThreads="no" fn="load-modules"
Init LateInit = "yes" fn="shtml_init"



Using Server-Parsed Commands


This section describes the HTML commands for including server-parsed tags in HTML files. These commands are embedded into HTML files which are processed by the built-in SAF parse-html.

The server replaces each command with data determined by the command and its attributes.

The format for a command is:

<!--#command attribute1 attribute2 <Body>... -->

The format for each attribute is a name-value pair such as:

name="value"

Commands and attribute names should be in lower case.

As you can see, the commands are "hidden" within HTML comments so they are ignored if not parsed by the server. Following are details of each command and its attributes.


config

The config command initializes the format for other commands.

  • The errmsg attribute defines a message sent to the client when an error occurs while parsing the file. This error is also logged in the error log file.

  • The timefmt attribute determines the format of the date for the flastmod command. It uses the same format characters as the util_strftime() function. Refer to Appendix E "Time Formats," for details about time formats. The default time format is: "%A, %d-%b-%y %T".

  • The sizefmt attribute determines the format of the file size for the fsize command. It may have one of these values:

    • bytes to report file size as a whole number in the format 12,345,678.

    • abbrev (the default) to report file size as a number of KB or MB.

Example:

<!--#config timefmt="%r %a %b %e, %Y" sizefmt="abbrev"-->

This sets the date format like 08:23:15 AM Wed Apr 15, 1996, and the file size format to the number of KB or MB of characters used by the file.


include

The include command inserts a file into the parsed file (it can't be a CGI program). You can nest files by including another parsed file, which then includes another file, and so on. The user requesting the parsed document must also have access to the included file if your server uses access control for the directories where they reside.

  • The virtual attribute is the URI of a file on the server.

  • The file attribute is a relative path name from the current directory. It may not contain elements such as ../ and it may not be an absolute path.

Example:

<!--#include file="bottle.gif"-->


echo

The echo command inserts the value of an environment variable. The var attribute specifies the environment variable to insert. If the variable is not found, (none) is inserted. See below for additional environment variables.

Example:

<!--#echo var="DATE_GMT"-->


fsize

The fsize command sends the size of a file. The attributes are the same as those for the include command (virtual and file). The file size format is determined by the sizefmt attribute in the config command.

Example:

<!--#fsize file="bottle.gif"-->


flastmod

The flastmod command prints the date a file was last modified. The attributes are the same as those for the include command (virtual and file). The date format is determined by the timefmt attribute in the config command.

Example:

<!--#flastmod file="bottle.gif"-->


exec

The exec command runs a shell command or CGI program.

  • The cmd attribute (Unix only) runs a command using /bin/sh. You may include any special environment variables in the command.

  • The cgi attribute runs a CGI program and includes its output in the parsed file.

Example:

<!--#exec cgi="workit.pl"-->


Environment Variables in Commands

In addition to the normal set of environment variables used in CGI, you may include the following variables in your parsed commands:

  • DOCUMENT_NAME

    is the file name of the parsed file.

  • DOCUMENT_URI

    is the virtual path to the parsed file (for example, /shtml/test.shtml).

  • QUERY_STRING_UNESCAPED

    is the unescaped version of any search query the client sent with all shell-special characters escaped with the \ character.

  • DATE_LOCAL

    is the current date and local time.

  • DATE_GMT

    is the current date and time expressed in Greenwich Mean Time.

  • LAST_MODIFIED

    is the date the file was last modified.


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Last Updated July 13, 2000