So yes query parameters existed before CGI but to use them you had to hack your server to do something with them (iirc NCSA web servers had some magic hacks for queries). CGI drove standardization.
func specialHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
if time.Now().Weekday() == time.Tuesday {
http.NotFound(w, r)
return
}
fmt.Fprintln(w, "server made a decision")
}
Forgive the phone-posting.
int main() { int s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0); setsockopt(s, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, &(int){1}, sizeof(int));
struct sockaddr_in addr = { AF_INET, htons(8080), .sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY };
bind(s, (struct sockaddr*)&addr, sizeof(addr));
listen(s, 10);
printf("Listening on :8080\n");
while (1) {
int c = accept(s, NULL, NULL);
char req[1024] = {0};
read(c, req, sizeof(req) - 1);
time_t now = time(NULL);
int tuesday = localtime(&now)->tm_wday == 2;
const char *status = tuesday ? "404 Not Found" : "200 OK";
const char *body = tuesday ? "Not Found (it's Tuesday)" : "Hello from 1995!";
char resp[256];
snprintf(resp, sizeof(resp),
"HTTP/1.1 %s\r\n"
"Content-Length: %zu\r\n"
"Connection: close\r\n\r\n%s",
status, strlen(body), body);
write(c, resp, strlen(resp));
close(c);
}
}But you're asking about the relationship between popular primarily file serving servers like Apache and their relationship to high level code to create custom responses? Yeah, CGI was the first big standard there that I remember, though it was a bit before my time. But that's only one possible architecture.
These days, most web apps have the web server built in, and so the custom code you're writing works with the full request directly. There may be a lightweight web server in front (or multiple), like nginx, to manage connections, but they will largely just proxy the whole thing through.
> Query strings existed before CGI did… There's nothing wrong about having things decided by the server
Sure, but there is also no standard for how to format/parse the query string. And also no server plugin frameworks. So you are inventing your own standard and extending some HTTP server for which you have source. Until CGI forces a standard, bad as it might be; it’s a common ground.