A Guestbook

This example allows you to write a customizable guestbook for a web site. A guestbook is an HTML form in which the user indicates his or her name and some comments. The guestbook can be used for collecting feedback on a topic, as a simple message board, or for submitting problems to a help desk. The data is kept in a file and can be displayed after the form is filled out; it also can be displayed on a page of its own.

Listing 22.7 provides a short bit of HTML to present a guestbook form for a fictional help desk. You can modify the form to suit your own needs.

Listing 22.7. Help Desk Form

 1:  <form action="/cgi-bin/helpdesk.cgi" name="helpdesk"> 2:  <p> 3:  Problem type: 4:  <input type="radio" name="probtype" value="hardware"/>Hardware 5:  <input type="radio" name="probtype" value="software"/>Software 6:  <br/> 7:  <textarea name="problem" rows="10