Re: [Nms-cgi-devel] CGI header line endings

[Nicholas C. <ni...@cc...>]

On Wed, Nov 13, 2002 at 09:24:54AM +0000, Nick Cleaton wrote:
> The right way to get correct header line endings for the platform is with
> CGI.pm's header() function, but older versions of CGI.pm don't support the
> -charset option to header(), so we can't just put:
> 
>    print header('-type'=>'text/html', '-charset'=>$charset);
> 
> and have it work back to 5.00404.  I've tested
> 
>    print header('-type' => "text/html; charset=$charset");
> 
> in both 5.00404 and 5.008, and it works without warnings.
> 
> I propose that we change any scripts that roll their own CGI headers over
> to this second way of doing it, and hope no future version of CGI.pm adds
> a warning for this type of abuse of -type.
> 
> Thoughts ?

We're trying to suggest best practice, aren't we?

I'd feel happier with something longer, such as

if ($] >= 5.005) {
  # This is the correct way to set the charset
  print header('-type'=>'text/html', '-charset'=>$charset);
} else {
  # However the CGI.pm supplied with perl before 5.005 doesn't have the
  # -charset option so we cheat:
  print header('-type' => "text/html; charset=$charset");
}

Is there actually an explanation tutorial that goes with the code? Or do
all the design decisions rest in the fading memories of the contributors?
Presumably inline design decisions in =pod could be cut out automatically
by whatever is rolling the distribution up from the CVS version. (if this
feature is wanted)

Nicholas Clark