print $query->start_html(-title=>'Secrets of the Pyramids',
-author=>'fred@capricorn.org',
-base=>'true',
-target=>'_blank',
-meta=>{'keywords'=>'pharaoh secret mummy',
'copyright'=>'copyright 1996 King Tut'},
-BGCOLOR=>'blue');
-or-
print $query->start_html('Secrets of the Pyramids',
'fred@capricorn.org','true',
'BGCOLOR="blue"');
This will return a canned HTML header and the opening <BODY> tag. All parameters are optional. In the named parameter form, recognized parameters are -title, -author, -base, -xbase and -target (see below for the explanation). Any additional parameters you provide, such as the Netscape unofficial BGCOLOR attribute, are added to the <BODY> tag.
The argument -xbase allows you to provide an HREF for the <BASE> tag different from the current location, as in
-xbase=>"http://home.mcom.com/";
All relative links will be interpreted relative to this tag.
The argument -target allows you to provide a default target frame for all the links and fill-out forms on the page. See the Netscape documentation on frames for details of how to manipulate this.
-target=>"answer_window"
All relative links will be interpreted relative to this tag. You add arbitrary meta information to the header with the -meta argument. This argument expects a reference to an associative array containing name/value pairs of meta information. These will be turned into a series of header <META> tags that look something like this:
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="pharaoh secret mummy">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="copyright 1996 King Tut">
There is no support for the HTTP-EQUIV type of < META> tag. This is because you can modify the HTTP header directly with the header() method.
JAVASCRIPTING: The -script, -onLoad and -onUnload parameters are used to add Netscape JavaScript calls to your pages. -script should point to a block of text containing JavaScript function definitions. This block will be placed within a <SCRIPT> block inside the HTML (not HTTP) header. The block is placed in the header in order to give your page a fighting chance of having all its JavaScript functions in place even if the user presses the stop button before the page has loaded completely. CGI.pm attempts to format the script in such a way that JavaScript-naive browsers will not choke on the code: unfortunately there are some browsers, such as Chimera for Unix, that get confused by it nevertheless.
The -onLoad and -onUnload parameters point to fragments of JavaScript code to execute when the page is respectively opened and closed by the browser. Usually these parameters are calls to functions defined in the -script field:
$query = new CGI;
print $query->header;
$JSCRIPT=<<END;
// Ask a silly question
function riddle_me_this() {
var r = prompt("What walks on four legs in the morning, " +
"two legs in the afternoon, " +
"and three legs in the evening?");
response(r);
}
// Get a silly answer
function response(answer) {
if (answer == "man")
alert("Right you are!");
else
alert("Wrong! Guess again.");
}
END
print $query->start_html(-title=>'The Riddle of the Sphinx',
-script=>$JSCRIPT);
See
http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/2.0/handbook/javascript/
for more information about JavaScript.
The old-style positional parameters are as follows: