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Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 07:21:33 -0400
From: "Sam Carleton" <scarleton@gmail.com>
To: modules-dev@httpd.apache.org
Subject: Re: apache module or CGI (conclusion)
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Folks,

I want to thank all three of you for your time, thoughts, and input on
this matter.  I have reached a conclusion... Drum role please....  It
will be....  a ....  apache module!!!!!!!!!!!

In the end, it came down to portability.  I realize that either way I
go, I need to be using APR and using apxs, it does appear that an
apache module is actually easier to implement.  I got the skeleton up
and running last night!

On my nightly walk I started to think of the possibilities now that I
am in the world that I know and love: C/C++.  I realized a way to
implement the whole web solution in this module, but there are more
infrastructure questions I have about how to tell the different
"pages" apart.

With the current PHP code, I have two different php pages:

index.php:  It has two looks, one where it shows thumbnails, another
where it shows one larger image.  Both pages have parameters passed to
via the GET method.

imageHandler.php: Given the correct parameters via a GET, it will
downsize the image and send it out.

My first question is, in an apache module, are there tools to get at
the parameters passed to the module or will I still need something
like cgic to get at them easily?  Second, right now the URL looks like
I am using gets, I *THINK* I would like to change that so it simply
looks like a path:

Rather then the current:

index.php?fldoid=f50b8377-d1cf-4407-bb59-a86ae7804d5c&imgoid=DSC_8912

I would like to see something like this:

index.php/f50b8377-d1cf-4407-bb59-a86ae7804d5c/DSC_8912

I do recall seeing something, in years gone by, about how apache can
do this type of thing and convert it back to a normal GET for the
script.  With a module, do I lose this feature and have to simply
parse it myself?

More importantly,  lets say my module is called mod_coolapp and when I
have it installed, you get to it at /coolapp.  I want /coolapp to be
the equivalent to the index.php and then have say, /coolapp/images be
the same as imageHandler.php.  Is there any trick to knowing which
"page" is being requested or is it simply a matter of doing a string
compare to see if the first part of the string passed the actual URL
(/coolapp/) is images?

Oh, one final question.  I am going to set things up so my customers
have great flexibility in what the web page actually looks like.  The
module will read in a template file to get what the out side, HTML
wrapper is and then will call different XSLT scripts to actual
transform the XML the module creates into HTML.  Is there any
standards as to where these resource files should be located?

Sam