Providing the middleware between servers, external databases and information sources, a gateway interface is the mode in which the web application interacts with the external world.
On typing https://dev.to/ your browser would redirect you to the homepage of DEV. But is that all you really use the web for?
As you traverse further in the world of World Wide Web, you'll come across documents that make you wonder, "How did they do this?"
In this example, there are two pieces of dynamic information: the alphanumeric address (IP name) of the remote user and the load average on the serving machine. This is a very simple example but how was it done?
A more common use case would be forms. when a user fills out a form on a Web page and sends it in, it usually needs to be processed by an application program. The Web server typically passes the form information to a small application program that processes the data and may send back a confirmation message. This method or convention for passing data back and forth between the server and the application is called the common gateway interface (CGI). It is part of the Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
CGI turns the Web from a simple collection of static hypermedia documents into a whole new interactive medium, in which users can ask questions and run applications
Top comments (1)
Would appreciate more technical explanation and pictures