Re: Passing info between pages

neuss@igd.fhg.de
From: neuss@igd.fhg.de
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 94 12:04:12 +0100
Message-id: <9401101104.AA02628@fourroses>
To: www-talk@www0.cern.ch
Subject: Re: Passing info between pages
Content-Length: 1835
Dear fellow Webbers,

rhb@hotsand.att.com writes:
> I'm looking for guidance on a way of passing information
> between pages (specifically forms).  

> 

> There are many application in which may want to pass "state"
> information between pages. For instance (based on an app 

> someone's written here) I may want to select a database
> from an initial form and be able to bring up a generic
> page that allows you to search on that particular database.
> How do I pass information to this "generic" page?  


This is actually a bit of a problem.. we started using forms as an oracle
front end and of course have run into the same problems.

What we do in order to pass information is the following:
1. every forms document is represented by a virtual HTML document which
   contains $variables. These will be replaced with information from
   the database.
2. virtual documents are called up by the query mechanism.
   Example:
     <FORM ACTION=
     "http://maotai/htbin/query/next=$trans_id/WWW/HTML/v-dieReise.html">
   Since the documents are accessed via queries, one can pass additional
   information in the URL. In our case this is a transaction id (which
   represents the database connection) and the document which is to be
   retrieved as result of the form action.
   A simple program can then strip "id" and access the database to make
   a query (any kind of state information can be identified via "id" and
   represented in the database). Database values can then be entered into
   the forms or other HTML documents by use of $variables.
   Example:
     <INPUT NAME="name" VALUE="$name"> Username	 ...
     This is the name: <B> $name </B>
     

If anybody is interested in details, feel free to send me email.

Hope the above helps,
Chris
--
/*
 *  Christian Neuss  %  neuss@igd.fhg.de  %  ..in the humdrum
 */