NAME

pqedit.cgi - Web-based database table editor.

SYNOPSIS

'http://www.domain.edu/mod_perl/pqedit.cgi?server=sqlserver &server_type=oracle &database=mydb&table=tablename&username=user&password=pwd &helppage=http://www.domain.edu/helpfile.html &labels=field1name;Field 1 Label,field2name;Field 2 Label &subedit_tables=table1%2Ctable2&button_subedit=1 &web_body_bgcolor=html_bgcolor &web_textarea_columns=number_of_columns &web_textarea_rows=number_of_columns &begin_html_include=/subweb_directory/html_to_include.html &middle_html_include=/subweb_directory/html_to_include.html &end_html_include=/subweb_directory/html_to_include.html &disable_lookup=nonlookup_table&no_schemacache=1 &pq_filename=field_value&pqdebug=1'

or

All parameters are optional. pqedit.cgi may be run from a shell in offline mode. It will then prompt you for the parameters:

(offline mode: enter name=value pairs on standard input).

ABSTRACT

The pqedit.cgi perl script is a Perl CGI script designed to allow easy editing of any Transact-SQL (Sybase or MS SQL server) or Oracle compliant database table. It is designed to provide a web, CGI form interface for editing any arbitrary database table--sufficient information to provide a reasonable form interface is acquired dynamically from the database server itself.

It runs on a web server as a Perl 5 CGI script that uses the CGI, Apache::Sybase::DBlib, Sybase::DBlib, Win32::ODBC, RDBAL, RDBAL::Schema modules.

INSTALLATION:

To install this package, just change to the directory in which this file is found and type the following:

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

And then copy pqedit.cgi to a place in your web directory tree that allows CGI scripts to run (if your web server supports mod_perl, a mod_perl location is preferred). pqedit.cgi will be copied to your '/usr/local/bin' directory also.

The mssql_pqweb.sql or sybase_pqweb.sql DDL scripts may be used to create the appropriate tables in the optional pqweb database. See the comments at the top of these files for their usage.

DESCRIPTION

PQ Edit uses the RDBAL::Schema module to query the database for information about the tables and fields available. Based on this information, it tries construct a reasonable interface for editing any table of interest.

PQ Edit does not maintain a connection to the database--it reconnects to the database server on each action. PQ Edit passes the username and password given to it to itself on each action so that it can reconnect to the database server.

PQEdit assumes that there are not any tabs in any of the fields being displayed or edited (it will turn each tab into a space).

PQEdit assumes that the names of the tables' fields do not have 15 underscores in a row as part of the name (Example: 'server.owner.table.my_______________field' is not allowed).

If called with no CGI parameters, it will prompt the user for:

server
database
table
username
password

or some or all of these may be passed as CGI GET or POST parameters.

PQEdit parameters

server

The name of the Transact-SQL database server (Sybase or MS SQL) to connect to.

server_type=oracle

This tells PQ Edit that it is an Oracle database which it is talking to. This parameter is mandatory for the correct working of PQ Edit with an Oracle database but should not be used for all Transact-SQL databases.

database

The name of the database on the database server that contains the table(s) to edit.

table

The name of the database table to start editing.

username

The username to use to login to the database server.

password

The password to use to login to the database server.

helppage

The URL of an HTML page which contain bookmarks which correspond to the names of the fields in the database. If this parameter is given, then PQ Edit will make the labels of the form's fields into clickable links pointing to htmlpage#fieldname. If a fieldname is part of a foreign key tuple, then the bookmark which will be used will consist of the field names seperated by ' and ' (Example: 'field1 and field2').

The helppage value may also be retrieved from the optional pqweb database.

labels

This parameter may contain a list of comma seperated pairs of fields and their overridden labels. The field;label pair is seperated by a semicolon.

Example: labels=field1name;Field 1 Label,field2name;Field 2 Label

subedit_tables

A comma seperated list of tables that should be also made available for editing. (NOTE: the HTML escaped form for comma is %2C. )

button_subedit

When given a true value, 1, uses push buttons instead of radio buttons for selecting (and switching to) another table for editing.

web_body_bgcolor

An HTML background color, BGCOLOR, value for the displayed pages.

web_textarea_columns

The number of text columns to use for larger character fields. Any character field larger than this value uses a text area CGI field instead of a text CGI field for editing. The default is 61.

web_textarea_rows

The number of text rows to use for larger character fields. The text area field will only be as large as is necessary based on the size of the character field--this value limits the maximum number of rows used. The default is 2.

begin_html_include

A file which contains HTML to include near the beginning of the PQ Edit form. The specification of this file should be the absolute path relative to the root of the web hierarchy. Example: '/mydir/helpfile.html'. This file should not contain the <HTML>, <BODY>, </BODY>, or </HTML> tags.

middle_html_include

A file which contains HTML to include near the middle of the PQ Edit form. The specification of this file should be the absolute path relative to the root of the web hierarchy. Example: '/mydir/helpfile.html'. This file should not contain the <HTML>, <BODY>, </BODY>, or </HTML> tags.

end_html_include

A file which contains HTML to include near the end of the PQ Edit form. The specification of this file should be the absolute path relative to the root of the web hierarchy. Example: '/mydir/helpfile.html'. This file should not contain the <HTML>, <BODY>, </BODY>, or </HTML> tags.

disable_lookup

A comma seperated list of tables that should NOT used as Lookup Tables or to provide the values and labels for Pull Down Menus. (NOTE: the HTML escaped form for comma is %2C. )

pq_fieldname

Values for the fields are passed to PQ Edit in this format to provide default values for the form's fields. Example, assuming database field: telephone_number is: pq_telephone_number='(314) 555-1111'.

nondisplay

Not implemented. A list of fields to not display.

no_schemacache

When given a true value, 1, causes PQ Edit to not use the cached copy of the schema and to write out a new schema cache. Note that this applies for the whole PQ Edit session.

pqdebug

When given a true value, 1, causes PQ Edit to run in a debugging mode.

PQ Web Database Parameters

An optional database may be used to store certain parameters used by PQEdit.

The parameters that may be stored in the optional pqweb database are:

helppage

The URL of the helppage to use.

labels

The overridden labels for table fields

web_body_bgcolor

The web pages background color.

pqweb_server

The name of the database server which contains the pqweb database.

pqweb_database

The name of the pqweb database. This defaults to pqweb.

pqweb_username

The username to use when connecting to the pqweb database. This account only needs 'select' permissions.

pqweb_password

The password to use when connecting to the pqweb database.

pqweb_entry

Which pqweb entry to use (the pqweb..pqweb.pq value).

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Brian H. Dunford-Shore brian@ibc.wustl.edu

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Address bug reports and comments to: www@ibc.wustl.edu

CREDITS

Thanks very much to:

David J. States (states@ibc.wustl.edu)

for suggestions and bug fixes.

BUGS

You really mean 'extra' features ;). None known.

TODO

These are features that would be nice to have and might even happen someday (especially if YOU write it).

More control of the 'Look and Feel' of the HTML page:: (colors, fonts, etc.).
Other types of database servers:: (PostgreSQL, mSQL, mySQL, etc.). (Note: this depends on there being a version of RDBAL and RDBAL::Schema for the database in question).

	Global
`s`	Focus search bar
`?`	Bring up this help dialog

	GitHub
`g` `p`	Go to pull requests
`g` `i`	go to github issues (only if github is preferred repository)

	POD
`g` `a`	Go to author
`g` `c`	Go to changes
`g` `i`	Go to issues
`g` `d`	Go to dist
`g` `r`	Go to repository/SCM
`g` `s`	Go to source
`g` `b`	Go to file browse

	Search terms
module: (e.g. module:Plugin)
distribution: (e.g. distribution:Dancer auth)
author: (e.g. author:SONGMU Redis)
version: (e.g. version:1.00)