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You've undoubtedly visited Web pages and seen "cgi-bin"
appear in the location line of your browser. CGI stands
for "Common Gateway Interface". It is a server-based
service which provides a means of adding expanded functionality
to Web pages over and above what HTML provides. This expanded
functionality is provided by using small programs, or "scripts",
that are executed on the server the Web page files reside
on. When you see that "cgi-bin" appear on the
location line, you probably executed a CGI script on the
server when you initially loaded the page, or will in the
course of using the page.
CGI is utilized by placing an appropriate HTML tag in
your HTML document ("Web page"). The author of
the script you wish to use should provide you with the appropriate
HTML tag needed to run that script. When the page is loaded
by a browser, i.e. viewed by a site visitor, the tag "calls"
the script and it is executed by the server. Note that this
is different from Java applets or JavaScript, which are
executed on the client (visitor's) system via their browser.
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