500 internal server error from PHP include

[dougmcc1]

I have fakescript.php in my cgi-bin and realscript.php in a folder called 'scripts'. The scripts folder is located in the cgi-bin and is password protected. fakescript calls realscript via an include statement. My output is a 500 Internal Server Error. Why?

Here is my form:
<form action="cgi-bin/fakescript.php" method="post">
<input type=text value="[e-mail]" name="email" size="20">
<input type="SUBMIT" VALUE="Submit">
</form>

My fake script:
<?php include "scripts/realscript.php";?>

My real script:
<?php
echo $email;
?>

Output:
500 Internal Server Error 🙁

The idea is to password protect my scripts. Thanks for any help and suggestions.

[dougmcc1]

"My output is a 500 Internal Server Error. Why?"
Because my host didnt activate my cgi-bin...

[drawmack]

a server 500 means that the cgi script threw an error. PHP generally doesn't run as a cgi which could be your problem. Try pulling the script out of the cgi-bin and putting it somewhere else on the server and see if that clears things up for you.

[dougmcc1]

Yeah that's what I did, which is how I found out it was the cgi-bin that was causing the problem. Thanks.