NAME

Configuration initializer

SYNOPSIS

use CGI::Getopt;

my $cg = CGI::Getopt->new('ifn', 'my_init.cfg', 'opt', 'vhS:a:');
my $ar = $cg->get_inputs; 

DESCRIPTION

This program enables CGI and command line inputs. It uses CGI and Getopt::Std modules.

new (ifn => 'file.cfg', opt => 'hvS:')

Input variables:

$ifn  - input/initial file name. 
$opt  - options for Getopt::Std

Variables used or routines called:

None

How to use:

my $cg = new CGI::Getopt;      # or
my $cg = CGI::Getopt->new;     # or
my $cg = CGI::Getopt->new(ifn=>'file.cfg',opt=>'hvS:'); # or
my $cg = CGI::Getopt->new('ifn', 'file.cfg','opt','hvS:'); 

Return: new empty or initialized CGI::Getopt object.

This method constructs a Perl object and capture any parameters if specified. It creates and defaults the following variables:

$self->{ifn} = ""
$self->{opt} = 'hvS:'; 

get_inputs($ifn, $opt)

Input variables:

$ifn  - input/initial file name. 
$opt  - options for Getopt::Std, for instance 'vhS:a:'

Variables used or routines called:

None

How to use:

my $ar = $self->get_inputs('/tmp/my_init.cfg','vhS:');

Return: ($q, $ar) where $q is the CGI object and $ar is a hash array reference containing parameters from web form, or command line and/or configuration file if specified.

This method performs the following tasks:

1) create a CGI object
2) get input from CGI web form or command line 
3) read initial file if provided
4) merge the two inputs into one hash array

This method uses the following rules:

1) All parameters in the initial file can not be changed through
   command line or web form;
2) The "-S" option in command line can be used to set non-single
   char parameters in the format of 
   -S k1=value1:k2=value2
3) Single char parameters are included only if they are listed
   in $opt input variable.

Some parameters are dfined automatically:

script_name - $ENV{SCRIPT_NAME} 
url_dn      - $ENV{HTTP_HOST}
home_url    - http://$ENV{HTTP_HOST}
HomeLoc     - http://$ENV{HTTP_HOST}/
version     - $VERSION
action      - https://$ENV{HTTP_HOST}$ENV{SCRIPT_NAME}
encoding    - application/x-www-form-urlencoded
method      - POST

read_init_file($fn)

Input variables:

$fn - full path to a file name

Variables used or routines called:

None 

How to use:

my $ar = $self->read_init_file('crop.cfg');

Return: a hash array ref

This method reads a configuraton file containing parameters in the format of key=values. Multiple lines is allowed for values as long as the lines after the "key=" line are indented as least with two blanks. For instance:

width = 80
desc  = This is a long
        description about the value

This will create a hash array of

${$ar}{width} = 80
${$ar}{desc}  = "This is a long description about the value"