SPUG: Web interface problem

[Parr, Ryan]

After the user hits submit you could send them to a page that refreshes
every  seconds or so, providing the user with a progress bar. Once the file
is 100% downloaded simply take them to the next step. You will need to
maintain a certain amount of state with the self-reloading CGI.

For a progress bar:

my $percent_complete = int($file_currentsize / $file_totalsize);

print <<HERE;
<table height="25" width="100%" border=1>
	<tr>
		<td width="$percent_complete%" bgcolor="navy">
	</tr>
</table>
HERE

-- Ryan


-----Original Message-----
From: Mikel Tidwell [mailto:dragon at dreamhaven.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 11:39 AM
To: spug-list at pm.org
Subject: SPUG: Web interface problem


Hi everyone,

I'm stumped on how to proceed on a page for a web interface I'm creating
for my web site.  I want to be able to download a typically large file off
another web server, and store it on the local server.  By large, I mean an
average of 20 MB or so, but up to 100 MB at a typical rate of 30K/s.

Here's how I expect it to work:

 * User locates the file on another site, comes to the interface, and
commands the file be downloaded.
 * Script uses either LWP or `wget` to fetch file. <Problem>
 * Script moves on to allow the person how to name the file, etc.

Problem: Downloading a file usually takes more than two minutes.  If the
client doesn't time out by then, the web server will terminate the process
anyway (cgi time limit in Roxen).  I could simply change this limit, but
I'm looking for a smarter solution.

I thought about creating a child process, but I know very little about
fork(), or what happens to the parent in this scenario.  I also have an
issue with, should the child be able to download the file, notifying the
user that the download was complete, so he/she can continue.

If this still makes any sense, please help.  Thanks... ^^

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  -- Mikel Tidwell   President: RPGamer -- http://www.rpgamer.com/
   MSNM: FireMyst    Personal Home Page -- http://dragon.rpgamer.com/
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