7.8 Form Widget Methods

The here document, though handy, may not be the best way to build every HTML page. CGI.pm provides several other methods to create widgets, including:

start_form() ” start tag for the form
textfield() ” tag for a text widget
textarea() ” tag for a text area
radio_group() ” tags for a radio button group
checkbox() ” tag for a check box
popup_menu() ” tag for a pop-up menu
scrolling_list() ” tags for a scrolling list box
submit() ” tag for a submit button
reset() ” tag for a reset button
end_form() ” </FORM>

The following example, /var/www/cgi-bin/widgets3.cgi , uses these methods and produces the same form shown in Figure 7.12. You can find its code at http://localhost/cgi/widgets3.cgi or www.opensourcewebbook.com/cgi/widgets3.cgi. To prove it works, load one of the URLs.

The if part is just like widgets2.cgi , so we won't show it here. The else part is of interest here:

 }else{     # if we are here, then we need to build the form     # so print the header, then the html     print         header(),         start_html(-title   => An Example of Form Widgets,                    -bgcolor => #ffffff),         h1(An Example of Form Widgets),         start_form(),         Programming language: ,         textfield(-name => language, -value => Perl),         br(),         Comments:,         br(),         textarea(-name => comments,                  -cols => 20,                  -rows => 5),         br(),         Rate the coolness: ,         radio_group(-name    => coolness,                     -values  => [cool, very cool, ice cold],                     -default => ice cold),         br(),         I will learn more about Perl and CGI: ,         checkbox(-name    => learnmore,                  -value   => yes,                  -label   =>  Yes,                  -checked => 1),         br(),         I will use this operating system: ,         popup_menu(-name   => operating_system,                    -values => [Linux, Solaris, HPUX],                    -size   => 1),         br(),         My favorite animal(s): ,         scrolling_list(-name     => animal,                        -values   => [Penguin, Camel, Llama,                                      Panther],                        -size     => 3,                        -multiple => 1),         br(),         br(),         submit(-value => Submit Form),          ,         reset(-value => Reset Form),         end_form();  }

Here the various CGI.pm functions are used to produce the HTML for this form.

Notice that action="/cgi-bin/widgets.cgi" was not set in the start_form() method. CGI.pm is smart enough to set the action to the name of the CGI program it is used within.

CGI.pm offers these other methods to create form widgets:

start_multipart_form() ” beginning tag for a multipart form
defaults() ” tag for a defaults button
password_field() ” tag for a password field (a text field containing data that won't be displayed ”it will be starred-out)
checkbox_group() ” tags for a group of check boxes
filefield() ” tag for a file upload widget (must use start_multipart_form() )
hidden() ” tag for a hidden field
image_button() ” tag for an image button
button() ” tag for a generic button

See the CGI.pm documents for further information.