Re: Passing info between pages

rhb@hotsand.att.com
From: rhb@hotsand.att.com
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 94 10:30:12 EST
Original-From: hotsand!rhb (Rich Brandwein)
Message-id: <9401101530.AA16978@hotsand.dacsand>
To: www-talk@library.ucsf.edu
Subject: Re: Passing info between pages
Content-Length: 2243

> 
Dave Ragget writes: 
> The latest ideas for forms include a new STATE element that
> allows servers to store information in forms in a manner
> that is opaque to browsers. 

This is *exactly* the element I'm looking for.  Any status on 
where it stands? 

Christian Neuss writes: 
> 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>
>      

This is another neat trick to getting state information into the process
and looks really valuable for some other apps.  It does now put
the emphasis on a back-end app to untangle the query.

For the bulk of many form based apps (coming from a number of similiar
questions by people trying to generate form based apps here) the STATE
element is a simple and effective method.  Really all that I'm looking
for is a form widget that isn't visible on the page.  That is,you could
also handle this as adding an attribute to a form field, for example:

	<INPUT TYPE="text" STATUS="hidden" VALUE="info I want to pass">
or
	<INPUT TYPE="hidden" VALUE="info I want to pass">

Of course, "INPUT" loses it's proper meaning, so a STATE element sounds right...

Rich