Embedded perl
How to Install Embedded Perl on Slackware 12.0
First, I installed mod_perl: Installing Mod_Perl.
Then, I used cpan to install Embed Perl. I ran "perl -MCPAN -e shell" and at the prompt typed "install Embperl". This prompted me for some dependencies, I had to do "install LWP" and then try "install Embperl" again. Eventually it worked.
I added these lines to the section for my virtual host in /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-vhost.conf (they could also be added in the main httpd.conf to apply to the whole server if desired):
# PerlModule HTML::Embperl
PerlModule Embperl
<Directory /home/rgr/public_html/embperl>
SetHandler perl-script
Options ExecCGI
# PerlHandler HTML::Embperl::handler
PerlHandler Embperl::handler
</Directory>
Note the parts that are commented out -- whose were in an online example I found, but they resulted in the "500 internal server error" message. I could see the detailed message in the apache error log, and perl was looking for HTML/Embperl.pm when it should have been looking for Embperl.pm.
After that I set up an example file (see the tutorial below) and successfully tested it.
Tutorial on Use
http://perl.apache.org/embperl/pod/intro/Intro.-page-3-.htm
Here is an example file I created in /home/rgr/public_html/embperl/test.pl (it actually should be in which ever directory you set to be handled via embperl in the httpd.conf file or httpd-vhosts.conf file):
<html> <body> First line.<br> [- $a = 5 -] Some stuff! [- $b = 6 if ($a == 5) -]<br> Now for some output:<br> [+ $a +] [+ $array[$b] +] [+ "A is $a" +] </body> <html>
And here is the output of http://localhost/embperl/test.html:
First line. Some stuff! Now for some output: 5 A is 5
Note that the code with [- -] is just run. The code with [+ +] is run, and the results are used to replace that part of the html file. You can also use [! !] which is for code that should only be run once, such as function definitions. The perldoc documentation or the apache page linked above has more complete explanations and tutorials: http://perl.apache.org/embperl/