Returning values from CGI scripts

tanuki_senior

What's the best way (is there any way?) of returning a value to a PHP page from a CGI script?

I have a PHP page which includes a form which calls a CGI script. When the CGI script has finished I want it to return a value back to the original PHP page, so that I can update the PHP page. The CGI script is a third party script which normally writes its own HTML - but I want to modify it so that it doesn't do this but instead returns me a value which I can then act on to modify my own page as appropriate.

Is this possible? If so how? Can I have a form in the CGI script which is automatically submitted using javascript submit() and sends the results to the PHP page? Or will this not work?

All help and ideas appreciated

Thanks

HalfaBee

I think rewrite the CGI into php would be the best bet.

HalfaBee

tanuki_senior

Yes - I'm trying to avoid rewriting the CGI as PHP - it's a thousand lines or so of Perl that I don't want to have to start trying to understand!

Are there any other ways of doing it?

HalfaBee

Does the cgi get the results from POST or GET?

HalfaBee

tanuki_senior

The PHP page passes data to the CGI script using a POST. Would whether it's done using a POST or GET make any difference to whether I could pass a return value back?

HalfaBee

You will need to call the CGI from a php script using fsockopen and all the rest.

There is some info on this at paypal.com, to pass info to their system.

HalfaBee

tanuki_senior

Think I've solved the problem. I've arranged for my CGI script to output some Javascript to redirect to my PHP page and I've returned the value I want to return as a query in the URL. This seems to do the trick for me.

Thanks for your help.