[Nms-cgi-devel] Re: [Nms-cgi-support] TFmail get error

[Jonathan S. <jn...@ge...>]

On Mon, 2004-08-09 at 17:17, webmaster wrote:
> webmaster wrote:
> 
> >>> Application Error
> >>> 
> >>> An error has occurred in the program
> >>> request method must be "POST"
> 
> > I think sending "405 method not allowed" is the best course
> > of action.
> 
> 
> I've come with a bit of a hack to generate the correct response,
> and thought I'd share it with the list. This hack requires Apache,
> mod_rewrite, and PHP. There are 2 steps:
> 
> 1. conditionally rewrite the url to the TFmail script if request method 
> is not post. I'll assume that TFmail is located in /cgi-bin/
> 
> RewriteEngine on
> RewriteBase /
> RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !POST
> RewriteRule ^cgi-bin/TFmail.pl$ /error405.php [L]
> 
> 
> 2. create error405.php, and add the following at the top, *before*
> any html is sent out
> 
> <?php
>    header("Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1", "true", "405");
> ?>
> 
> Set the charset to whatever you use. The second argument ensures
> that PHP replaces any content-type header it might have sent out.
> The "405" tells PHP to send that code as the http response code.
> 

It could be done by changing the single line:

     die 'request method must be "POST"';

to:

   print $treq->cgi()->header(-status => 405);
   exit;

and creating the appropriate 405 error page if required.

> 
> 
> If TFmail users would prefer that a GET request simply return the user 
> to the contact form page, you can modify step (1) above and skip step 
> (2). Thus, this solution requires only Apache and mod_rewrite. Let's 
> assume that the form is located at /contactform.html
> 
> 
> RewriteEngine on
> RewriteBase /
> RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !POST
> RewriteRule ^cgi-bin/TFmail.pl$ /contactform.html [R,L]
> 
> 
> Users may want to send a permanent redirect in such cases. Consult the 
> Apache manual for details on how to fine tune this.

I think that in this case it would be better to be have a redirect
configured in the .trc file  - or indeed have TFmail.pl actually have
another potential template that could be filled out from the GET request
query string - that way it would be possible for people to create links
to a form with some of the fields filled in or with a different config
or other things that I can't think of at the moment.

Anyway thanks for your input

/J\