| <html><head><title>CGI Environment Variables</title></head><body><h1><img alt="" src="env_files/CGIlogo.gif"> CGI Environment Variables</h1> |
| <hr> |
| |
| <p> |
| |
| In order to pass data about the information request from the server to |
| the script, the server uses command line arguments as well as |
| environment variables. These environment variables are set when the |
| server executes the gateway program. </p><p> |
| |
| </p><hr> |
| <h2>Specification</h2> |
| |
| <p> |
| The following environment variables are not request-specific and are |
| set for all requests: </p><p> |
| |
| </p><ul> |
| <li> <code>SERVER_SOFTWARE</code> <p> |
| |
| The name and version of the information server software answering |
| the request (and running the gateway). Format: name/version </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>SERVER_NAME</code> <p> |
| The server's hostname, DNS alias, or IP address as it would appear |
| in self-referencing URLs. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>GATEWAY_INTERFACE</code> <p> |
| The revision of the CGI specification to which this server |
| complies. Format: CGI/revision</p><p> |
| |
| </p></li></ul> |
| |
| <hr> |
| |
| The following environment variables are specific to the request being |
| fulfilled by the gateway program: <p> |
| |
| </p><ul> |
| <li> <a name="protocol"><code>SERVER_PROTOCOL</code></a> <p> |
| The name and revision of the information protcol this request came |
| in with. Format: protocol/revision </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>SERVER_PORT</code> <p> |
| The port number to which the request was sent. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>REQUEST_METHOD</code> <p> |
| The method with which the request was made. For HTTP, this is |
| "GET", "HEAD", "POST", etc. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>PATH_INFO</code> <p> |
| The extra path information, as given by the client. In other |
| words, scripts can be accessed by their virtual pathname, followed |
| by extra information at the end of this path. The extra |
| information is sent as PATH_INFO. This information should be |
| decoded by the server if it comes from a URL before it is passed |
| to the CGI script.</p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>PATH_TRANSLATED</code> <p> |
| The server provides a translated version of PATH_INFO, which takes |
| the path and does any virtual-to-physical mapping to it. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>SCRIPT_NAME</code> <p> |
| A virtual path to the script being executed, used for |
| self-referencing URLs. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <a name="query"><code>QUERY_STRING</code></a> <p> |
| The information which follows the ? in the <a href="http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/demoweb/url-primer.html">URL</a> |
| which referenced this script. This is the query information. It |
| should not be decoded in any fashion. This variable should always |
| be set when there is query information, regardless of <a href="http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/cl.html">command line decoding</a>. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>REMOTE_HOST</code> <p> |
| The hostname making the request. If the server does not have this |
| information, it should set REMOTE_ADDR and leave this unset.</p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>REMOTE_ADDR</code> <p> |
| The IP address of the remote host making the request. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>AUTH_TYPE</code> <p> |
| If the server supports user authentication, and the script is |
| protects, this is the protocol-specific authentication method used |
| to validate the user. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>REMOTE_USER</code> <p> |
| If the server supports user authentication, and the script is |
| protected, this is the username they have authenticated as. </p><p> |
| </p></li><li> <code>REMOTE_IDENT</code> <p> |
| If the HTTP server supports RFC 931 identification, then this |
| variable will be set to the remote user name retrieved from the |
| server. Usage of this variable should be limited to logging only. |
| </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <a name="ct"><code>CONTENT_TYPE</code></a> <p> |
| For queries which have attached information, such as HTTP POST and |
| PUT, this is the content type of the data. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li><li> <a name="cl"><code>CONTENT_LENGTH</code></a> <p> |
| The length of the said content as given by the client. </p><p> |
| |
| </p></li></ul> |
| |
| |
| <a name="headers"><hr></a> |
| |
| In addition to these, the header lines received from the client, if |
| any, are placed into the environment with the prefix HTTP_ followed by |
| the header name. Any - characters in the header name are changed to _ |
| characters. The server may exclude any headers which it has already |
| processed, such as Authorization, Content-type, and Content-length. If |
| necessary, the server may choose to exclude any or all of these |
| headers if including them would exceed any system environment |
| limits. <p> |
| |
| An example of this is the HTTP_ACCEPT variable which was defined in |
| CGI/1.0. Another example is the header User-Agent.</p><p> |
| |
| </p><ul> |
| <li> <code>HTTP_ACCEPT</code> <p> |
| The MIME types which the client will accept, as given by HTTP |
| headers. Other protocols may need to get this information from |
| elsewhere. Each item in this list should be separated by commas as |
| per the HTTP spec. </p><p> |
| |
| Format: type/subtype, type/subtype </p><p> |
| |
| |
| </p></li><li> <code>HTTP_USER_AGENT</code><p> |
| |
| The browser the client is using to send the request. General |
| format: <code>software/version library/version</code>.</p><p> |
| |
| </p></li></ul> |
| |
| <hr> |
| <h2>Examples</h2> |
| |
| Examples of the setting of environment variables are really much better |
| <a href="http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/examples.html">demonstrated</a> than explained. <p> |
| |
| </p><hr> |
| |
| <a href="http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/interface.html"><img alt="[Back]" src="env_files/back.gif">Return to the |
| interface specification</a> <p> |
| |
| CGI - Common Gateway Interface |
| </p><address><a href="http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/mailtocgi.html">cgi@ncsa.uiuc.edu</a></address> |
| |
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