SSI Includes

Published on 01 January 2007

How to embed CGI scripts in HTML files

In order to embed CGI scripts, first find if your web hosting company supports Server Side Include (SSI). Call or email your tech support to find this. [If you're hosting on Bluehost, yes they support SSI]

Create a new .htaccess file or open the existing .htaccess file in the same directory where you want your SSI includes to exist

Add these two lines

AddType text/html .html
AddHandler server-parsed .html

You may want to add this line if you want to execute Perl scripts ending in .pl or .cgi
```
AddHandler cgi-script pl cgi
```

Testing the SSI include

Lets create a file called ssi.html that embeds a Perl script date.pl. This Perl script outputs the current date and time when executed.

Create ssi.html with these contents:
```
<h1>SSI Test</h1>
```

- Create date.pl in the same directory with these contents:


!/usr/bin/perl -w
print date;

- If your CGI script is in another directory, you can call it from the HTML page using the include virtual directive

<h1>SSI Test</h1>
<!--#include virtual="/demo/date.pl"-->

- Make the script executable with by chmodding date.pl with +x or FTP client or whatever CP you use to access your files

Demo

Check out the working demo here.

Last Update: 01 January 2007 [Created on 02 January 2007]

TAGS: ssi, apache, cgi

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