Server
Side Includes (SSI) FAQ
This document is intended to teach you the
ins and outs of Server Side Includes and how to
use them on our servers. A general understanding
of HTML is required. What
In The World Are Server Side Includes ?
Server Side Includes
are a special set of commands that you can use
inside HTML code when creating your website.
They let you easily add dynamic elements to
your pages such as the current date and time,
last modified date, and a users IP address and
browser type. Perhaps the most valuable use
for SSI is the ability to include external HTML
documents within your page.
SSI
Basics (Using Server Side Includes)
In order to use SSI
you must give your html files a .shtml extension
instead of the regular .html or .htm extension.
This tells our servers that you have SSI commands
within your pages so we can handle them properly.
Once
you have given your file a .shtml extension
you can begin to use SSI commands. These commands
are placed between special comment tags within
your HTML code. A typical SSI command looks
like this: <!--#command=""-->
Remember that what your code looks like will
be different from what is displayed on screen.
Does
this seem confusing? Here is a list of SSI commands
and what they look like on screen. You can simply
copy and paste the command from here if you
wish.
Browser Output
(on screen)
|
SSI Command Code
|
The Current
Date and Time: Thursday,
08-Apr-2004 12:03:31 EDT |
The Current
Date and Time: <!--#echo
var="DATE_LOCAL" --> |
The Previous
Web Page: http://www.jinfo.net/support |
The Previous
Web Page: <!--#echo
var="HTTP_REFERER" --> |
Your IP Address:
80.137.99.6 |
Your IP Address:
<!--#echo
var="REMOTE_ADDR" --> |
Your Browser
Type and OS: Mozilla/4.0
(compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98) |
Your Browser
Type and OS: <!--#echo
var="HTTP_USER_AGENT" --> |
This Web Page
File Name: ssifaq.shtml |
This Web Page
File Name: <!--#echo
var="DOCUMENT_NAME" --> |
This Web Page
File Size: 11K |
This Web Page
File Size: <!--#fsize
file="ssifaq.shtml" --> |
This Web Page
Last Modified Date: Wednesday,
03-Jan-2001 15:03:11 EST |
This Web Page
Last Modified Date: <!--#flastmod
file="ssifaq.shtml" --> |
Lets
Make A Date!
You can customize your date any way you please.
This is accomplished by placing a special time
format command directly in front of the Current
Date and Time command that we looked at above.
Lets take a look at a few examples:
If you want your date to look like this: Thu
08 Apr 04
<!--#config timefmt="%a %d %b %y" -->
<!--#echo var="DATE_LOCAL" -->
If you want your
date to look like this: Thursday
April 08 2004
<!--#config timefmt="%A %B %d %Y" -->
<!--#echo var="DATE_LOCAL" -->
If you want your date
to look like this: 04/08/04
<!--#config timefmt="%m/%d/%y" -->
<!--#echo var="DATE_LOCAL" -->
Here
is the entire list of Time Format codes:
| Full
Name |
Abbreviated
Name |
| %A
Full weekday name |
%a
Abbreviated weekday name |
| %B
Full month name |
%b
Abbreviated month name |
| %Y
Full year |
%y
Abbreviated year |
| %D
Date as mm/dd/yy |
%d
Day of the month |
| %H
Hour as 1 - 23 |
%I
Hour as 1 - 12 |
| %M
Minutes 0 -60 |
%m
Month of the year 01 - 12 |
| %R
Time as %H: %M |
%r
Time as %I: %M: %S: %p |
| %p
a.m. or p.m. |
%T
Time as %H: %M: %S |
| %S
Seconds as 0 - 60 |
%Z
Time zone name |
SSI Troubleshooting
Q - I
have placed an SSI command within my HTML file
but nothing happens.
A - Make
sure the extension of your HTML file .shtml
and not .html or .htm
Q - I
keep getting the following error: [an error
occurred while processing this directive
A - If
you are trying to include a file make sure it
is in the same directory as the main file. Also
make sure you have spelled the filename correctly
in your SSI command.
Q - Why
can't I execute CGI (perl) scripts within my
webpage using the #exec cgi command?
A -
At this point
Jinfo does not provide #exec-cgi functionality
- although you can still use scripts from your
CGI-BIN directory.
|