Overview:

Using Forms on the Web
by Agatha Taormina

  You can put forms in your web pages to request information from your visitors.

Forms make your web site interactive.

There are many common uses of forms on a web site:
  • questionnaires
  • registration information
  • order forms
  • short answer quizzes
However, to gather and retrieve the information that you request in a form, you need a script that tells the server where to store the information.

The most common type of script used with a web page form is a CGI Script

CGI Scripts CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface.

The CGI script is a simple computer program that processes the information gathered by the form you have placed on your web site.

Because this script resides on the web server, you must contact your site administrator to find out how to place a script on your host server.

Note that you can display a form on your web site with simple HTML coding.

However, you can’t actually gather the data in a form without the CGI script that has been installed on the web server to process the data.

 

 

 

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Web Design Center Readings
Last Revised: December 17, 2001
©  Agatha Taormina