Mel Rothman's CGIDEV2 CGI service program (cgisrvpgm2 in library cgidev2) provides tools that make it easier to write, test, debug, and maintain ILE-RPG CGI programs.

CGIDEV2 requires now OS/400 V5R2 or subsequent.

For a detail description of CGIDEV2 components and features you may read Mel's readme.

CGIDEV2 was initially made available in December 2000 FOR V4R4. This version, as compared to Version 1 (made available through this site in July 1997), provides further benefits in terms of

1. Performance.
   Response times are significantly better than in Version 1. Improvement ratios from 5 to 10 times are to be expected. This also results in a similar increase of iSeries 400 thoughput in serving CGI transactions.
2. New functions
   
   • Parsing the input string
     A new parsing procedure was made available. It is based on the QzhbCgiParse API.
     The previous parsing procedure based on QtmhCvtDb API, that is, through an externally defined data structure, is still available.

     	CGIDEV	CGIDEV2
     Max. number of input variables	???	32,767
     Max. length of an input variable	???	32,767 (special procedure for 64,000)
     Max. number of occurrences of the same input variable	???	8,200

   • Externally defined HTML output - physical source file

     	CGIDEV	CGIDEV2
     Source record length	132	240 (132 compatible)
     Section name prefix	/$	default = /$ user defined 10 char prefixes
     Section name max length	10	50
     Variable name delimiters	/%   %/	default = /%   %/ user defined 10 char delimiters
     Variable name max length	10	30
     Variable value max length	500 char	1000 char (special procedure for 16Mb)
     Max. number of sections	50	1000
     Max. number of unique variables in the source	50 per section	16,221 across all sections
     Max. number of occurrences of variables in the source	???	32,767
   • Externally defined HTML output - IFS stream files
     Externally defined HTML outputs can now be also stored as PC files (stream files) in directories of the Integrated File System. By using this approach
     • the restriction of 228 characters per line no longer applies
     • it would be possible design external HTML scripts using HTML authoring tools, such as Microsoft Front Page, IBM Websphere Studio, or other.
     Directories containing externally defined HTML
     • do not require any HTTP directive to be accessed
     • for performance reasons, it is recommended be separate from directories accessed from the HTTP server, such as directories containing static HTML pages and/or images.
   • Error messages
     Message sections can be defined in the external html output source. Service program procedures allow to easily send and write error messages.
   • Data handling functions
     to convert character strings
   • Persistence functions
     to make up a session (handle) name
   New procedures have been made available to substitute variables and to write sections. These new procedures require much less RPG coding than in CGIDEV.