Module: CGI::Portal - Extensible Framework for Multiuser Applications SYNOPSIS use CGI::Portal; CGI::Portal::activate({'database_type' => "mysql", 'database_name' => "some_name", 'database_host' => "localhost", 'database_user' => "some_user", 'database_passw' => "some_password", 'user_table' => "users", 'user_index_field' => "id", 'user_user_field' => "user", 'user_passw_field' => "passw", 'user_email_field' => "email", 'add_user_fields' => "first_name,middle_initial,last_name,city,state,country", # does not add fields to your user table ;-) 'session_table' => "sessions", 'session_index_field' => "id", 'session_sid_field' => "sid", 'session_user_field' => "user", 'session_start_field' => "session_start", 'add_session_fields' => "", # does not add fields to your session table ;-) # Modules in the CGI::Portal::Scripts namespace, the first is the default action 'actions' => ["logon", "logoff", "register", "profile", "changepw", "emailpw"], 'session_length' => 7200, 'admin_email' => "some_user\@some_host.com", 'header_html' => "header.html", 'footer_html' => "footer.html", 'logon_success_html' => "logon.html"}); DESCRIPTION CGI::Portal is intended as a framework for the design of extensible, plug-configure-and-play multiuser web applications based on preferred object oriented coding standards. It includes authentication and session management. Applications are build by first configuring a simple startup script as above and then by creating modules that reside in the CGI::Portal::Scripts namespace and extend CGI::Portal::Scripts. CGI::Portal does not create database tables for you, so you will have to do that yourself. All requests go through the startup script, CGI::Portal then calls a module in the CGI::Portal::Scripts namespace depending on the desired action. Above shown actions are included in CGI::Portal. For example, portal.cgi?action=foo calls CGI::Portal::Scripts::foo::launch() Functions activate CGI::Portal::activate($conf) takes a reference to the configuration hash, collects input parameters, creates a database object, and passes those on to your module for creating an object instance. It then runs your modules "launch" method and concludes by doing the printing for you. This function is called once from your startup script. Building Applications See CGI::Portal::Scripts on Building Applications INSTALLATION perl Makefile.PL make make test make install AUTHOR Alexander David ================================================================ Module: CGI::Portal::Scripts - Extending CGI::Portal SYNOPSIS package CGI::Portal::Scripts::some_name; use CGI::Portal::Scripts; use vars qw(@ISA); @ISA = qw(CGI::Portal::Scripts); 1; sub launch { my $self = shift; .... } DESCRIPTION Applications based on CGI::Portal are build by creating modules that reside in the CGI::Portal::Scripts namespace and extend CGI::Portal::Scripts. These modules must provide a subroutine launch() that CGI::Portal calls as an object method to run your modules code. A subroutine new() is not necessary or helpful as you are extending CGI::Portal::Scripts. In your modules, do not print() or exit(). Instead of "print"ing append to $self->{'out'} or $self->{'cookies'} and instead of "exit"ing, "return" from launch(). Extending CGI::Portal::Scripts, gives you access to an object with the following attributes. Attributes conf $self->{'conf'} references a hash containing all values as set in the startup script. in $self->{'in'} references a hash containing all input parameters, stripped off any HTML tags. user $self->{'user'} is set by $self->authenticate_user() if logon succeeds. rdb $self->{'rdb'} is a CGI::Portal::RDB database object including a database handle. out $self->{'out'} supposed to collect all output. cookies $self->{'cookies'} collects cookie headers you might want to set. It is also used for Sessions, so you might want to append to it. Functions authenticate_user $self->authenticate_user() takes no arguments and does not return anything. It sets $self->{'user'} and starts a session if user logon succeeds. If user logon fails it writes the HTML for a logon form to $self->{'out'}. It also maintains the sessions during subsequent calls. $self->authenticate_user(); return unless $self->{'user'}; .... logoff $self->logoff() takes no arguments and does not return anything. It removes the current users session id from the database and unsets the session cookie. RDB->exec $self->{'rdb'}->exec($sql) is an object method for the database object. It takes a SQL statement as argument and returns a DBI statement handle. The database handle can be directly retrieved from $self->{'rdb'}{'dbh'}. RDB->escape $self->{'rdb'}->escape(@values) takes an array of SQL values. It uses DBI's quote() on those values and returns them as a string seperated by commas. AUTHOR Alexander David