CGI Form Processing Using Form Maps

A CGI form transmits data to a CGI program. When data is transmitted from a CGI form, the data is sent to the Web server using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol ( HTTP). The Web server then executes the CGI program specified by the input form and sends the form data to it as standard input. When this data is received by the CGI program the name/value pairs can be placed in the os_form_map . The CGI program then processes the information and creates a Web page on the fly.

The class os_form_map is a container for name/value pairs transmitted from an os_form . Designed for use with an os_form , an os_form_map greatly simplifies the task of parsing form data into easily accessed name/value pairs.

Name/value pairs are stored internally in an STL multimap . This underlying container is exposed through the member function fields() to allow application-specific manipulation of the form data.

Using the data transmitted from the input form, this illustration shows the Web<ToolKit> code for a CGI program used to process the data. It also shows the HTML generated, and the resulting Web page created by the CGI program.