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!name: winCGI

            The Norton Guide To ClipX.Lib Version 1.2
                          What Is winCGI
                    
                        
Win-CGI is a variant of standard CGI, tailored for Microsoft Windows-based 
World Wide Web servers. Standard CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a simple, 
widely supported specification that supports communications between Web 
browsers and remote applications residing on a Web server. These applications 
are sometimes called gateway programs. An interface is required because HTTP 
(HyperText Transport Protocol) is designed to transfer static objects, not 
execute programs dynamically. 

CGI specifies a set of environment variables, the syntax for calling a gateway 
program, a means of passing information into a gateway program, and a means of 
returning results from a gateway program. 

It's the last two--input and output--that require special handling in Windows. 
Conventional CGI was developed for the Unix environment, in which file I/O is 
conducted using standard input (STDIN) and standard output (STDOUT). CGI 
specifies that arguments should be passed into gateway programs using STDIN 
and that programs should write their results to STDOUT. This suffices on Unix 
servers. 

Windows, however, does not support standard I/O. Preserving the spirit of 
standard CGI while enabling communications on Windows platforms requires an 
alternate technique. 

Win-CGI uses spooled I/O--temporary files--for passing information. When a 
Win-CGI program is called, the server creates a tem porary file, called the 
CGI data file, organized into the following sections: 

* [CGI] 

This section contains most of the items represented in standard CGI as 
environment variables, such as Request Method and User Agent. 

*[Accept] 

This lists the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) content types 
accepted by the server. 

*[System] 

This contains Win-CGI-specific items, including the names of any I/O files, 
the offset in seconds from GMT, and a switch for Debug mode, which displays 
CGI execution on Windows (normally off). 

The other sections are *[Extra Headers] , *[Form Literal] , *[Form External] 
, *[Form File] , and *[Form Huge] .  

                                 
Online reference: Lan Times