How to setup the Perl script sample?

Created on 2002-06-20 by Andre Lorbach.

In this article, I will explain how to setup the sample.pl script on your webserver. First, you have to make sure that you have the following requirements:

• Webspace with full Perl Script Support (Usually, Perl scripts can be used in the cgi-bin directory)
• SendMail support -  See the feature list of your Webspace Provider.
• FTP Access to your Webspace Provider.
• FTP Client that supports raw commands (See http://www.ghisler.com/ if you don't have such a FTP Client).

1. The first step is to locate and edit the sample script.

See the NewsMerge installation directory and open the file sample.pl with a text editior (notepad.exe for example). Then you have to customize the following lines:

• Line 18: $recipient="youremail\@yourdomain.adiscon.com";    
  Insert the Recipient Email address here. The \@ is very important because @ is a used character in the perl language.
• Line 90 to 117: Contains the subscription form which is displayed by default if the script is opened over the web. Modify it as you need it. But don't alter the form item names.
• Line 107 to 109: Depending on how many Newsletter you have. For example, <option value="Newsletter 1">Newsletter 1</option> will subscribe somebody to Newsletter name "Newsletter 1". You can only add or remove option entries.

2. The second step is to upload and set the file permissions for the script file. 

Usually, you have to upload the script into the cgi-bin directory on your webserver by using a FTP Client application. Make sure that your FTP Client is using ASCII for the upload method. This is very important, otherwise the script won't run. After you uploaded the script type the following command to set the file permissions: chmod 755 sample.pl

This command will allow the script to be executed (also very important). You only need to set this the first time when you upload a script. If you overwrite it later, you don't need to set the file permissions again.

3. Include the script into your existing web sites.

There are two main possibilities to include the script into your existing web sites. The easiest way is to simply set a link to it:

<a href="/cgi-bin/sample.pl">Subscribe my Newsletter</a>

Another way is to include it into a SSI HTML site. See the following site if you don't know what SSI is: http://www.oltronics.net/ssifaq.html

You can include the script by using this SSI command:
...htmlcode...
<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/sample.pl"-->
...htmlcode...