Web Server Reference

protocol

Applicable network protocol; e.g. http:// or ftp://.

server

Server name. Use an IP (Internet Protocol) address such as 127.0.0.1 or a DNS (domain name) such as www.pvxplus.com.

socket

Optional TCP socket or port number (an integer preceded by a colon). Valid range:  1 to 65535.

By default, all requests from a client are sent to TCP socket 80, unless you override the port number in your URL statement. To do this in any HTTP-compliant browser, include a : colon and the port number right after the server name.

Example:

The first URL below would default to TCP socket 80, and the second would connect with TCP socket 3000:

     http://www.pvxplus.com/support/home.htm
     http://www.pvxplus.com:3000/support/home.htm

filename.ext

Item that the browser is requesting. This could be the name of:

• An HTML page; e.g. myfile.htm
• A directory (include a trailing forward slash)
• A PxPlus program
• Any file or any type (including a directory listing) that appears in the Web Server's root directory or subdirectories of the root directory

See URL Request to Run a PxPlus Program and Appendix - HTML Examples.

argument(s)

Optional argument(s). If you include arguments:

• Mark the start of a list of arguments with a leading ? (question mark).
• You can use numeric variables, but they cannot have an = equals sign or a + plus sign (i.e. encoded space). By default, the Web Server sets the value of a numeric (Boolean) variable to 1.
• You can use string variables in variable=data pairs; e.g. data=abc+123. (The + plus sign represents an encoded space in the string. That is, abc+123 is the equivalent of "abc 123". There are no quotation marks enclosing the string value in the URL.)
• You can include command line arguments.
• If you include more than one argument, use an & (ampersand) as a separator; e.g. ?myvar1&data=abc+123&nextvariable.

Note:
The Web Server saves command line arguments in:  %ARGS$[1:%ARGS].

Where:

%ARGS$     Stores the arguments (such as the ARG( ) function return value).
%ARGS       Stores the number of the arguments (such as the NAR system variable).

Example 1:

This example is a request for the file "myfile.htm" from the root directory of the Web Server www.pvxplus.com. Since no optional TCP socket is specified, the request would be made to the www.pvxplus.com Web Server on TCP socket 80 (default):

     http://www.pvxplus.com/myfile.htm?numvar1&stringvar=abc%20def

This would pass two variables to the file:

     numvar1 would become the numeric variable numvar1 with a value of 1.
     stringvar would become the string variable STRINGVAR$ with a value of "abcdef" (%20 becomes the space).

Example 2:

This example, http://127.0.0.1/somprog?one+two+three, is a request for the file "someprog" from the Web Server currently running on the local machine and passes it three arguments, which the Web Server returns in %ARGS$[%ARGS] as:

     %ARGS$[1]="one", %ARGS$[2]="two" and %ARGS$[3]="three"

The value in %ARGS=3. See PxPlus Web Server Variables.

Example 3:

The two examples below are requests for the program "someprog" from the sub-directory "somedir" in the Web Server's root directory.

The first example creates a numeric variable, ONE=1. The second passes the values in %ARGS$[1]="one" and %ARGS=1:

     http://127.0.0.1/somedir/someprog?one
     http://127.0.0.1/somedir/someprog?+one

Example 4:

This example requests the file named "myprog", which, if it is a PxPlus program, will start execution at the label LOOP:

     http://127.0.0.1/myprog;loop?comp=001&name=Your+Name+Here&copies=3&copy&now+then

It is passing the following from the URL for use in the PxPlus program:

     comp=001 as COMP$="001"
     name=Your+Name+Here as NAME$="Your Name Here"
     copies=3 as COPIES$="3"
     copy as COPY=1
     now+then as %ARGS$[1]="now", %ARGS$[2]="then", %ARGS=2

Example 5:

This example is a request to the Web Server listening on port 2000 to RUN the file "someprog", if it is a PxPlus program:

     http://127.0.0.1:2000/someprog?name=you&name=me&name=them

Note that the arguments all have the same variable name. This is handled as a special case. When a variable name is passed more than once, the Web Server creates a single variable (in this instance, NAME$) and concatenates the data from each consecutive pass to the previous value in the variable as +SEP+extra data (in this instance, NAME$="you"+SEP+"me"+SEP+"them").

Example 6:

The Web Server builds a special COMPOSITE STRING named CGI$. When you pass variables (either string or Boolean numeric, but not arguments), the Web Server builds an IOLIST of your variable names and then DIMensions CGI$ to that IOLIST. Variable names passed more than once only appear in the IOLIST once:

     http://127.0.0.1/myprog;loop?comp=001&name=Your+Name+Here&copies=3&copy&now+then

For the example above, a PRINT LST(IOL(CGI$)) directive returns:

     IOLIST COMP$,NAME$,COPIES$,COPY

You can assign the current data values to the DIMensioned composite string CGI$ from the variables passed in the URL by using CGI$=REC(IOL(CGI$)) when RUNning your program. This allows you to gain access to the data as composite string elements, in this instance, with the following values:

     CGI.COMP$="001" CGI.NAME$="Your Name Here" CGI.COPIES$="3"
     CGI.COPY=1