DataCash Perl script execution failure

[Anon]

I know this is not a PERL forum, but I have a question associated to Perl and PHP, if anyone can help me.

I compiled the PERL API scripts required for DataCash(www.datacash.com) - credit card verification. We have Perl version 5.005_03 on Linux server.

When i execute the perlscript from command prompt (installation directory or from cgi-bin directory), it runs fine and gives me the right output - verification of the credit card number.

The same perlscript fails to execute from the Browser, although it resides in the cgi-bin directory and Apache has been configured to run cgi/perl scripts from there.

Here is the error-log entry from Apache.

[Mon Aug 13 11:39:47 2001] [error] (2)No such file or directory: exec of /home/h
ttpd/cgi-bin/perlscript.pl failed
[Mon Aug 13 11:39:47 2001] [error] Premature end of script
headers: /home/httpd/cgi-bin/perlscript.pl

The perlscript uses many perl module files , eg. use strict ;
use DataCash::External;
etc...

I also tried running in a PHP script as

<?
$datacash_string = "perl /home/httpd/cgi-bin/perlscript.pl" ;

system($datacash_string) ;
echo "<br>" ;
exec($datacash_string, $result1) ;
print_r($result1) ;
?>

But no output on the Browser.

I feel Apache server fails to find these modules.

How do I make this script run and execute and return the values back to browser ?

How to make Apache understand the perl module paths ?

Any help will be highly appreciated.
Thank you,

Brij.

[[deleted]]

The most common error is this:

If you have a perl script in your webserver, you need to tell the webserver how to run the script.
For perl, this is done by putting the location op 'perl' at the top of the scripts:

#!/path/to/perl

your script starts here

...

[Anon]

Vincent,

Thanks for the prompt reply.
The path to perl is there in the begginning of the script

#! /usr/bin/perl

The script does not work from the browser. It gives Internal server Error and the log shows the error of Premature end of script error.

I'm sure it has something to do with the include files the datacash perl script has in the beginning. Is there a way to alter the array @INC to include the new perl module files ?

Many Thanks,
Bijal.

[[deleted]]

"Premature end of script headers"
means that the headers were not sent.
Yes that could be because some PERL module was not loaded.
Try it out, the worst thing that can happen is that it doesn't work :-)

[Anon]

Vincent,

My Perl problem got solved somehow. I copied on of the perl module(.pm) files in one of the exisiting paths shown by @INC.

Then the script began to work as an external command execution from PHP like
<? passthru (perl perscript.pl) ?>
and I got the output on the browser.

But still, the script wasn't working as direct execution from browser www.example.com/cgi-bin/perlscript.pl

Strange I copied line by line of the original script into another script and that worked, but still can't figure out why the original script still gives me Internal server error.

Not that it matters to me much, sometimes it is better to keep somethings as mystery...

Anyway thanks for the help.

Bij.