Executing Files

If you really want to see the power available with SSI, take a look at this section. You can actually use SSI to execute CGI routines! What's so cool about this? Well, the CGI routine can dynamically create HTML code, which is inserted directly in the midst of your page.

One common use of this form of SSI is for counters and ad rotation scripts. As an example, we have added a simple counter CGI routine. The SSI call is shown below.

This results in the following:

7643

If you look at the source code, you will only see the digits. You won't see any SSI calls.
The digits have been generated by the CGI routine and automatically inserted into the HTML page.

The "include virtual" is the recommended way to execute a CGI routine in this manner. You can also use the "exec cgi" directive. This appears as shown below.

This results in the following:

7644

If you would like to put this counter on your pages, you can download the script here.
Unzip the file, upload it into your /cgi-bin/counter dir in ASCII or text format. Set the file permission to 755 or rwxr-xr-x and put the SSI code as shown in the example above on your shtml page(s).

After you've put the counter on your page, look at it with your browser. If you don't see the counter the first time, hit reload. Then you should see the number 1. If you want to change the page count, FTP to your site, and look in the /counter directory in your cgi-bin. There will be a file there with the name of whatever page you placed this counter on. Just upload a new text file with a new number on it, and that will be the new count on the page next time you hit reload. Remember to upload the file in ASCII or text format.

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- Last modified on 3/16/2003 -