CGI::Push(3)

✨ NAME ✨

okay bestie, welcome to CGI::Push(3) — straight out of the User Contributed Perl Documentation, no cap. The name says it all:

CGI::Push — Simple Interface to Server Push 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

here's the vibe in code form, literally copy-paste energy:

use strict;
use warnings;

use CGI::Push qw(:standard);

do_push(
    -next_page => \&next_page,
    -last_page => \&last_page,
    -delay     => 0.5
);

sub next_page {
    my($q,$counter) = @_;
    return undef if $counter >= 10;
    ....
}

sub last_page {
    my($q,$counter) = @_;
    return ...
}

---

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So CGI::Push is a subclass of the CGI object that CGI.pm creates. It's hyper-specialized for server push operations, which is the whole thing that lets you build animated pages whose content changes at regular intervals. iconic behaviour honestly 🦋

Here's the tea: you hand CGI::Push a pointer to a subroutine that draws one page. Every single time your subroutine gets called, it generates a fresh new page. The contents get transmitted to the browser in such a way that it replaces whatever was there beforehand. And this technique works with HTML pages and with graphics files — so yes, you can absolutely make animated GIFs with it. obsessed 💖

heads up bestie: only Netscape Navigator supports server push. Internet Explorer browsers do not. 😭 (iykyk, it's giving 1998)

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👑 USING CGI::Push 👑

CGI::Push adds exactly one new method to the standard CGI suite: do_push(). When you call it, you pass it a reference to a subroutine that's responsible for drawing each new page, an interval delay, and an optional subroutine for drawing the last page. Other optional parameters include most of those recognized by the CGI header() method. slay.

You may call do_push() in the object oriented manner or not, as you prefer:

use CGI::Push;
$q = CGI::Push->new;
$q->do_push(-next_page=>\&draw_a_page);

-or-

use CGI::Push qw(:standard);
do_push(-next_page=>\&draw_a_page);

Parameters are as follows, bestie, one by one:

• -next_page

do_push(-next_page=>\&my_draw_routine);

This is a required parameter and it points to a reference to a subroutine responsible for drawing each new page. That subroutine should expect two parameters: the CGI object and a counter indicating the number of times the subroutine has been called. It should return the contents of the page as an array of one or more items to print. It can return a false value (or an empty array) in order to abort the redrawing loop and print out the final page (if any). 🔥

sub my_draw_routine {
    my($q,$counter) = @_;
    return undef if $counter > 100;
    ...
}

You are of course free to create and use global variables within your draw routine in order to achieve special effects. main character energy fr fr ✨

• -last_page — this optional parameter points to a reference to the subroutine responsible for drawing the last page of the series. It gets called after the -next_page routine returns a false value. The subroutine itself should have exactly the same calling conventions as the -next_page routine. 🫶
• -type — this optional parameter indicates the content type of each page, and it defaults to "text/html". Normally the module assumes that each page is of a homogeneous MIME type. However, if you provide either of the magic values "heterogeneous" or "dynamic" (the latter provided for the convenience of those who hate long parameter names — real), you can specify the MIME type — and other header fields — on a per-page basis. See "heterogeneous pages" for more details. 👀
• -delay — this indicates the delay, in seconds, between frames. Smaller delays refresh the page faster. Fractional values are allowed. If not specified, -delay will default to 1 second. ⭐
• -cookie, -target, -expires, -nph — these have the same meaning as the like-named parameters in CGI::header(). If not specified, -nph will default to 1 (as needed for many servers, see below). 💜

🌈 Heterogeneous Pages 🌈

Ordinarily all pages displayed by CGI::Push share a common MIME type. But by providing a value of "heterogeneous" or "dynamic" in the do_push() -type parameter, you can specify the MIME type of each page on a case-by-case basis. mix and match, we love to see it 💅

If you use this option, you will be responsible for producing the HTTP header for each page. Simply modify your draw routine to look like this:

sub my_draw_routine {
    my($q,$counter) = @_;
    return header('text/html'),   # note we're producing the header here
    ....
}

You can add any header fields that you like, but some (cookies and status fields included) may not be interpreted by the browser. One interesting effect is to display a series of pages, then, after the last page, to redirect the browser to a new URL. Because redirect() does not work, the easiest way is with a -refresh header field, as shown below:

sub my_draw_routine {
    my($q,$counter) = @_;
    return undef if $counter > 10;
    return header('text/html'),   # note we're producing the header here
    ...
}

sub my_last_page {
    return header(-refresh=>'5; URL=http://somewhere.else/finished.html',
                  -type=>'text/html'),
    ...
}

🦋 Changing the Page Delay on the Fly 🦋

If you would like to control the delay between pages on a page-by-page basis, just call push_delay() from within your draw routine. push_delay() takes a single numeric argument representing the number of seconds you wish to delay after the current page is displayed and before displaying the next one. The delay may be fractional. Without parameters, push_delay() just returns the current delay. flexible AND iconic 💖

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🎀 INSTALLING CGI::Push SCRIPTS 🎀

lowkey important, bestie: server push scripts must be installed as no-parsed-header (NPH) scripts in order to work correctly on many servers. On Unix systems, this is most often accomplished by prefixing the script's name with "nph-". Recognition of NPH scripts happens automatically with WebSTAR and Microsoft IIS. Users of other servers should see their documentation for help. 🙈

Apache web server from version 1.3b2 on does not need server push scripts installed as NPH scripts: the -nph parameter to do_push() may be set to a false value to disable the extra headers needed by an NPH script. no cap 🔥

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🍓 AUTHOR INFORMATION 🍓

The CGI.pm distribution is copyright 1995-2007, Lincoln D. Stein. It is distributed under the Artistic License 2.0. It is currently maintained by Lee Johnson with help from many contributors. 💜

Address bug reports and comments to: https://github.com/leejo/CGI.pm/issues

The original bug tracker can be found at: https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Queue=CGI.pm

When sending bug reports, please provide the version of CGI.pm, the version of Perl, the name and version of your Web server, and the name and version of the operating system you are using. If the problem is even remotely browser dependent, please provide information about the affected browsers as well. Copyright 1995-1998, Lincoln D. Stein. All rights reserved. 🫶

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💀 BUGS 💀

This section intentionally left blank.

(yes really. nothing. zero bugs. not one. we simply do not see them 💅✨)

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🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

CGI::Carp, CGI

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and that's the whole page, bestie — this was CGI::Push(3) from perl v5.42.0, dated 2025-01-09. go forth and push those pages 💖🎀🦋👑