WWW - Common Gateway Interface (CGI)

Internet managers can link web servers to back-end applications via the common gateway interface (CGI).

The basic process is as follows;

Web browser user clicks a URL containing a request to run a CGI script.
For example:. From a form like this;

The following URL could be generated
http://v2.com/cgi/data.pl?field.1=Floptical+Bunny&field.2=12+Tui+St&check.1=on&radio.2=on
The web server will send the following to the script. (http://v2.com/cgi/data.pl) - here a Perl script (pl).
- Environment variables (SERVER_SOFTWARE, SERVER_NAME and GATEWAY-INTERFACE)
- Application command line (client datastream) (field.1=floptical+bunny&field.2=12+Tui+St&check.1=on&radio.2=on)
The script may call a program that is run on the server that may access for example a database, and returns the data (may be an html form) to the Standard output (STDOUT).
This is then sent back to the browser for display.