Overview

The CGI API provides a library of functions for creating CGI (Common Gateway Interface) programs. It contains functions for manipulating the CGI environment, avoiding the often-quirky CGI transport and encoding mechanisms and replacing them with a consistent interface.

Access to the API is through a CGI struct that is returned by a call to opencgi(). Translated CGI variables from the URL, content, and elsewhere are obtained from this object with the getcgi() function. Variables can be created and saved across program invocations with the putcgi() function, allowing state retention through the duration of a Web client's session. This makes it easier to write CGI programs that need to "remember" information about a Web client's session (e.g. perhaps a list of items chosen to be purchased).

Output of HTML- or URL-encoded data is made easier with the htpf() set of functions, which supersede the standard printf() library. Metamorph queries can even be executed and marked up in HTML on the fly by simply "printing" the string and query.

When finished, closecgi() closes the given CGI and frees its resources.