DBIx::CGITables 0.001

DBIx::CGITables is a Perl module for easy DB access from a CGI.

SYNOPSIS

use DBIx::CGITables;
my %parameters=();
my $query=DBIx::CGITables->new(%parameters));
$query->search_execute_and_do_everything_even_parse_the_template();

This module is under development - and this version is not tested very well. The documentation might not be completely in sync with the latest changes, and the documentation is not optimized for easy understanding at the moment. Sorry.
DBIx::CGITables is made for making database access through CGIs really easy.
Its completely template-oriented. The templates are in HTML::Template format. Some templates might be set up quickly by using DBIx::CGITables::MakeTemplates; see the doc for this module. Some web designer should fix the templates a bit.

The template approach might make the system a bit "static". Gerald Richter has another approach based upon HTML::Embperl (not published at the time I write this), if youd better like a more dynamic system. Anyway, I find it quite important not to mix HTML and code - the HTML documents should be easy to manipulate by non-technical web editors.

Ideally, HTML and (language-dependent) content should be splitted. I think such things might be done better by using Zope than cgis.

The database handling is done by DBIx::Recordset - this module gets its parametres first from a CGI query, then it might be overridden or completed by a parameter file, and the caller (your .cgi script or whatever) is also free to modify or add parameters.

Im hoping that anybody should get a working (though, probably ugly) CGI interface to any kind of database simply:

1. Run DBIx::CGITables::MakeTemplates (see the pod)
2. Create the script given above at SYNOPSIS
3. Set up the webserver correct.
4. If youre not satisfied with the look, try to edit the html templates.
5. If youre not satisfied with the functionality, try reading the rest of this documentation, and the DBIx::Recordset documentation.
6. If youre still not satisfied with the functionality and/or you find bugs, hack the code and submit the patches to the mailinglist and/or me and/or (if DBIx::Recordset is affected) Gerhard Richter. If youre not a perl hacker, or if you dont have time, send a mail about whats wrong and/or whats missing to the mailinglist anyway. Or privately to me if you dont want to write to a mailinglist.