Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 11:46:44 -0500
From: John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>
To: gopher@complete.org, cleeker@gmx.net
Subject: [gopher] Re: Hello all
Message-ID: <20020715164644.GD3245@complete.org>
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On Mon, Jul 15, 2002 at 12:02:50AM -0400, Robert Warning wrote:
> 
> Im kinda new to gopher, but after cruising the net I stumbled across 
> this little gem which is perfect for my needs. (A text only site that 

Hello Robert,

I am glad you found Gopher and dropped by.  Let me try to answer your
questions:

> gives info and downloads on a flashy php-based web tingy im working on, 
> ironic no) I have a couple questions though. Since gopher is a  one way 
> street from server to client (except for client page requests) how is 
> cgi handled more specifically these mole things they talk about at 

Gopher does not have a CGI algorithm as such.  Bucktooth "moles" or
PyGopherd PYGs both provide for dynamic document and menu generation. 
Essentially, it is possible to generate documents on the fly, with arbitrary
menus, and let the user select things from them.  After all, it's just a
different select.  It works similar to the GET method for CGIs.

Take a look at gopher://gopher.quux.org:70/1/pygfarm/dict.pyg for an
example.  The source to this comes with the pygopherd distribution.  It
provides a Gopher interface to a DICT server, generating all pages
(including that main one) on the fly based on the DICT responses.

> bucktooth? What are ASKs and how do they work? What is the differnece 

ASK blocks are a feature of gopher+ that are similar in concept to HTML
forms, but less advanced.  They have never been widely implemented or used.

> between gopher+ and regular old gopher? Any help would be appreciated.

Gopher+ represents extensions to the Gopher protocol that allow MIME types
of files, file sizes, multiple views of files, and arbitrary attributes (ie,
an abstract).  As far as I know, Gopher+ is implemented on the server side
only in UMN gopherd and pygopherd, though I think Ralph might have some
hacks to bucktooth to do that with that server as well.  Gopher+ support on
the client side is also somewhat meagre; AFAIK, only UMN Gopher supports it.
Pygopherd does automatic gopher+ attribute translation for older clients or
HTTP clients, so that they can still view a page reasonably well.

-- John


-- 
John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>    GPG: 0x8A1D9A1F    www.complete.org