LIS650 lecture 5 html forms javascript, http and apache

1
LIS650 lecture 5html formsjavascript, http and
apache

• Thomas Krichel
• 2005-02-26

2
today

• forms filling in to prepare for active web sites
• javascript
• http
• apache introduction

3
Forms

• Forms are parts of an HTML document that a user
  can fill in.
• The thing that users act on are called the
  controls of the form. They include buttons,
  checkboxes, text areas, file selections...
• some controls are hidden
• elements used in forms use a special attribute
  group that I will call the "form attributes". I
  will discuss them now.
• Let us look first at an example to fix ideas.

4
form attribute "tabindex"

• Stupid users use the mouse to fill in form. Smart
  users use the tab character on the keyboard. It
  is much quicker.
• if you set the "tabindex" on a in input, you can
  set the order. The value of the attribute is a
  number between 0 and 32767. The input with a
  lower number will be dealt with before the one
  with a higher number.

5
form attribute "readonly"

• If you set readonly"1" the control can only be
  read but not set. readonly"0" is the default, it
  means that the control can be set.
• if an input is readonly"1"
• it can receive focus but cannot be modified by
  the user.
• it is included in tabbing navigation.
• it is transmitted to the server for processing

6
form attribute "disabled"

• If you set disabled"1" the control can only be
  read but not set. disabled"0" is the default, it
  means that the control can be set.
• if an input is disabled"1"
• it can not receive focus and can not be modified
• it is excluded in tabbing
• it is not transmitted to the server for
  processing.

7
ltformgt

• This element encloses a form.
• It accepts the core and i18n attributes.
• It admits an "action" attribute. Its value is the
  URL of a script that will handle the form after
  it is submitted.
• It admits a "method" attribute. This attribute
  determines how the form is submitted to the
  script. There are only two choices
• get
• post

8
The GET method

• if you use get, the form data is transmitted by
  appending it to the URL of the script.
• Google do it that way
• Advantage you can bookmark the form.
• Problem there is a limit of 1024 chars for the
  URL, therefore only a limited information can be
  transmitted in this way.

9
the POST method

• if you use post, the user agent sends the form as
  a POST message to the server.
• The data is sent in the body of the http
  exchange.
• Thus it can be as long as you want.
• If you use POST you can set the content-type of
  the message with a special attribute "enctype"

10
more attributes to ltformgt

• Here are two more attributes I will list for
  completeness
• "accept-charset" says what character sets will be
  accepted by the
• "accept" says what MIME-types can be accepted.

11
ltinputgt

• This element creates a control. Usually a form
  has several ltinputgts as well as text that
  explains the from.
• It admits the core, i18n and the from attributes.

12
the "type" attribute of ltinputgt

• This attribute can only take the following values
• text enter text
• password enter text, but don't echo on screen
• checkbox enter checks on boxes
• radio check one select
• submit press to submit form
• reset reset form
• file upload file (can only be done with PUT)
• hidden hidden form data, not shown
• image an image to decorate submit button
• button a button

13
the "name" attribute of ltinputgt

• This give a name to the control that the users
  are setting.
• Think of it like an attribute name in HTML
• and what the user writes is the attribute value

14
the "size" attribute of ltinputgt

• It lets you set the initial size of the input
  field.
• When the type is 'text' or 'password' the value
  you give to this field is the number of
  characters.
• Otherwise it is the number of pixels.

15
the "maxlength" attribute of ltinputgt

• this sets the maximum length on the value.
• note that this is different from the size of the
  input field because there is scrolling.
• if you don't specify a maximum length there is no
  limit.

16
the "value" attribute of ltinputgt

• This gives the initial value of the ltinputgt.
• The initial value is shown to the user, and sh
• "value" is optional but should be given for the
  radio and checkbox type.

17
other attributes of ltinputgt

• When the input is of type "radio", setting the
  "checked" attribute to any value will tell the
  browser what button is initially set. Of course
  there can only be one of them.
• When the input is of type "checkbox", setting the
  "checked" attribute to any value will make sure
  it is checked initially.
• When the input is of type 'image' the "src"
  attributes give the URL of the image.

18
the ltbuttongt element

• This makes a button for decoration.
• It takes a "type" attribute that can be either be
  'button', 'submit' or 'reset'.
• It has takes a "name" attribute for the name of
  the control that it sets.
• It takes a "value" attribute attribute to set a
  value.
• And it can have character contents!

19
creating menus

• This is done with ltselectgt element.
• Each ltselectgt element can have a number of
  ltoptiongt elements that contain the options that
  the user can choose from.

20
attributes to ltselectgt

• "multiple" can be set to 'multiple' to allow or
  disallow multiple selections.
• "size" sets how many rows of the selection should
  be displayed at any one time.
• "name" has the name of the control that is set.
• It also takes the core and i18n attributes.

21
attributes to ltoptiongt

• "value" can be used to set the value of the
  control when the value set is different than the
  contents string of the option element.
• "label" can be set to label the option. if it is
  set, the user agent should use label rather than
  the content. At least this is what the spec says.
  Firefox does not seem to agree.
• ltoptiongt takes the core and i18n attributes.

22
ltoptgroupgt

• This element has ltoptiongt elements as its
  children.
• It is used to create hierarchical options. This
  is mainly a time and space-saving device in the
  presence of many options. Say
• ltoptgroup label"Winter"gtltoption
  label"January"/gtltoption label
  "February"/gtltoption label"March"gtlt/optgroupgt
• ltoptgroupgt takes the same attributes as ltoptiongt.

23
the lttextareagt element

• This creates a text area where you can put a
  large chunk of text.
• "name" sets the name of the control that is set.
• "cols" sets the number of columns in the text
  area.
• "rows" sets the number of rows in the text area.
• lttextareagt also admits the i18n, core and form
  attributes.

24
ltlabelgt

• This is a way to add labels for inputs.
• Normally, the input label should be taken from
  the "label" attribute of the input.
• ltlabelgt can be used if the other method can not
  be.
• It accepts a "for" attribute to give the input
  for which it is the label is for. Example
• ltinput name"sex"/gtltlabel for"sex"gtsexlt/labelgt

25
summary

• forms deliver data to the server. The server can
  then process the data and deliver a response.
• Active effects can also be done client-side. This
  is done using the ltscriptgt element that mostly
  uses a language called javascript.

26
the ltscriptgt

• ltscriptgt is an element that calls a script.
• It requires a "type" attribute that gives the
  type of the script language. e.g.
  type"text/javascript".
• It takes the "src" argument that gives a URI
  where the script can be found. Such a script is
  called an external script.
• It takes a "defer" attribute. If set as defer"1"
  you tell the user agent that the script will
  generate no output. This helps the user agent in
  that case.

27
example

• ltscript type"text/javascript"gt
• document.write("hello, world")
• lt/scriptgt
• Interestingly enough, you can place this script
  in the head or the body.
• This is an example of an automated script. The
  user has to do nothing to get the script to run.
• You can also trigger a script. To do that, we
  have to study some more HTML attributes. We will
  do that later.

28
external script

• You can also create an external file, say
  hello.js with the line
• document.write("hello, world")
• Then you can call it up in the html file
• ltscript type"text/javascript"
  src"hello.js"/gt

29
default script language

• You should set the default scripting language
  used in the document using the ltmetagt element in
  the ltheadgt
• ltmeta http-equiv"content-script-type"
  content"text/javascript"/gt
• If you don't the validator does not complain, but
  I don't see other ways to specify the language.

30
Javascript history

• A programming language that was developed by
  Netscape for their browser in 1995.
• To counter, Mickeysoft developed Jscript.
• It has been standardized by the European Computer
  Manufacturers Association as ECMA 262.

31
principal features

• It contains instructions for a user agent to
  execute. Javascript is not run by the server.
• It resembles Java, but not the same language.
• It is an object-oriented language.

32
object

• In an object-oriented language, an object is the
  prime focus of attention.
• An object has properties and methods.
• Example from real life. Let a bus be an object.
• color of the bus is a property
• move to next station is a method

33
objects in javascript

• Properties are accessed by
• object_name.property_name
• Methods are accessed by
• object_name.method_name()
• where object_name is the name of an object,
  property_name is the name of a property and
  method_name() is the name of an object. Note the
  use of the dot and the parenthesis.

34
Example

• Syntax rules
• Comments are started with // and go to the end of
  the line.
• Instructions are terminated with semicolon
• Example
• // create a new object called bus
• new bus Object()
• // paint it white --- set a property
• bus.color white
• // move to next stop --- apply a method
• bus.movetonextstop()

35
event attributes

• Event attributes can be given to elements (like
  any attribute, really)
• The name of the attributes gives a certain event
  that could happen to the element.
• The value of the event attribute is the script to
  be executed when the event occurs on the element
  that has the event attribute.
• Example
• ltp onmouseover"stink"gtCow shit is ... lt/pgt
• as the user moves the mouse over the
  paragraph, the browser fires up an imaginary
  script called stink that makes it start to stink.

36
core event attributes I

• "onclick" occurs when the pointing device button
  is clicked over an element.
• "ondblclick" occurs when the pointing device
  button is double clicked over an element.
• "onmousedown" occurs when the pointing device
  button is pressed over an element.
• "onmouseup" occurs when the pointing device
  button is released over an element.
• "onmouseover" occurs when the pointing device is
  moved onto an element.

37
core events attributes II

• "onmousemove" occurs when the pointing device is
  moved while it is over an element.
• "onmouseout" occurs when the pointing device is
  moved away from an element.
• "onkeypress" occurs when a key is pressed and
  released over an element.
• "onkeydown" occurs when a key is pressed down
  over an element.
• "onkeyup" occurs when a key is released over an
  element.

38
special event attributes

• "onfocus" occurs when an element receives focus
  either by the pointing device or by tabbing
  navigation. This attribute may only be used with
  the ltagt element, and some form elements that we
  have not covered.
• "onblur" occurs when an element loses focus
  either by the pointing device or by tabbing
  navigation. It may be used with the same elements
  as onfocus.

39
more special event attributes

• "onsubmit" occurs when a form is submitted. It
  only applies to the ltformgt element.
• "onreset" occurs when a form is reset. It only
  applies to the ltformgt element.
• some more are only used with other form
  elements...
• Let us look at some examples

40
two stupid examples

• lthtmlgtltheadgtlttitlegtjavascript testlt/titlegt
• ltmeta http-equiv"content-script-type"
  content"text/javascript"/gtlt/headgt
• ltbodygtltp onmouseover"alert('Today is 'Date())"
  gttimelt/pgtlthr/gt
• ltp onmouseover
• "document.write('not funny')"gtjokelt/pgt
  ltpgtlt/bodygtlt/htmlgt

41
An even more silly example

• lthtmlgtltheadgtlttitlegtBush in the bushlt/titlegt
• ltmeta http-equiv"content-script-type" content
  "text/javascript"/gtltscript type"text/javascript"gt
  
• prbunew Image() prbu.src"bush.jpg"
• natbnew Image() natb.src"natgeo.jpg"
  lt/scriptgtlt/headgtltbodygtlth4gtBush in the
  bushlt/h4gtltdivgtltimg id"bush" src"bush.jpg"
  onmouseover"document.bush.srcnatb.src"
• onmouseout"document.bush.srcprbu.src"
  alt"bush in the bush"/gtlt/divgtlt/bodygtlt/htmlgt

42
http

• Stands for the hypertext transfer protocol. This
  is the most important application layer protocol
  on the Internet today, because it provides the
  foundation for the world wide web.
• defined in Fielding, Roy T., James Gettys,
  Jeffrey C. Mogul, Paul J. Leach, Tim Berners-Lee
  Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1''
  (1999), RFC 2616

43
history

• 1990 version 0.9 allows for transfer of raw
  data.
• 1996 rfc1945 defines version 1.0. by adding
  attributevalue headers.
• 1999 rfc 2616
• adds support for
• hierarchical proxies
• caching,
• virtual hosts and some
• Support for persistent connections
• is more stringent.

44
http resource identification

• identification of resources is assumed through
  Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI).
• As far as http is concerned, URIs are string.
• http can use absolute'' and relative'' URIs.
• A URL is a special case of a URI.

45
rfc about http

• An application-level protocol for distributed,
  collaborative, hypermedia information systems.
• HTTP is also used as a generic protocol for
  communication between user agents and
  proxies/gateways to other Internet systems,
  including those supported by the SMTP, NNTP, FTP,
  Gopher, and WAIS protocols. In this way, HTTP
  allows basic hypermedia access to resources
  available from diverse applications.

46
http assumes transport

• http assumes that there is a reliable way to
  transport data from one host on the Internet to
  another one.
• All http requests and responses are separate TCP
  connections. The default is TCP port 80, but
  other ports can be used.

47
use of other standards

• http shares the same registry as the MIME
  multimedia email extensions. It is based at the
  IANA, at
• http//www.isi.edu/innotes/iana/
• assignments/media-types/media-types
• The default character set is ISO-8859-1.

48
Absolute http URL

• the absolute http URL is
• http//hostportabs_path?query
• If abs_path is empty, it is /.
• The scheme name "http" and the host name are
  case-insensitive.
• Characters other than those in the reserved''
  and unsafe'' sets of RFC 2396 are equivalent to
  their HEX HEX'' encoding.
• optional components are in

49
http messages

• There are two types of messages.
• Requests are sent form the client to the server.
• Responses are sent from the server to the client.
• The generic format is the same as for email
  messages
• start line
• message headers
• empty line
• body
• Empty lines before the start line are ignored.
• The request's start line is called the
  request-line.
• The response start line is called the
  status-line.

50
overall operation server side

• Server sends response, required items are
• status line
• protocol version
• success or error code
• optional items are
• server information
• body

51
overall operation client side

• Client sends request, required items are
• method
• request URI
• protocol version
• optional items are
• request modifiers
• client information
• Let us now look at different methods

52
GET and HEAD method

• The GET method means retrieve whatever
  information (in the form of an entity) is
  identified by the Request-URI. If the Request-URI
  refers to a data-producing process, it is the
  produced data which shall be returned as the
  entity in the response and not the source text of
  the process.
• The HEAD method is identical to GET except that
  the server MUST NOT return a message-body in the
  response.

53
Conditional partial GET

• The semantics of the GET method change to a
  conditional GET'' if the request message
  includes an
• If-Modified-Since
• If-Unmodified-Since
• If-Match
• If-None-Match
• If-Range header
• The semantics of the GET method change to a
  partial GET'' if the request message includes a
  Range header field. A partial GET requests that
  only part of the entity be transferred

54
The POST method

• The POST method is used to request that the
  origin server accept the entity enclosed in the
  request as a new subordinate of the resource
  identified by the Request-URI in the
  Request-Line. POST is designed to allow a uniform
  method to cover the following functions
• Annotation of existing resources
• Posting a message to a bulletin board, newsgroup,
  mailing list, or similar group of articles
• Providing a block of data, such as the result of
  submitting a form, to a data-handling process
• Extending a database through an append operation.

55
PUT and DELETE methods

• The PUT method requests that the enclosed entity
  be stored under the supplied Request-URI. If the
  Request-URI refers to an already existing
  resource, the enclosed entity should be
  considered as a modified version of the one
  residing on the origin server.
• The DELETE method requests that the origin server
  delete the resource identified by the Request-URI.

56
The request headers

• Accept Accept-Charset
• Accept-Encoding Accept-Language
• Authorization Expect
• From Host
• If-Match If-Modified-Since
• If-None-Match If-Range
• If-Unmodified-Since Max-Forwards
• Proxy-Authorization Range
• Referer TE
• User-Agent

57
The status line

• The status line is a set of lines that are of
  the form
• HTTP-Version Status-Code Reason-Phrase
• The status code is a 3-digit number used by the
  computer.
• The reason line is a friendly note for a human to
  read.

58
Status code classes

• 1 Informational Request received, continuing
  process
• 2 Success The action was successfully received,
  understood, and accepted
• 3 Redirection Further action must be taken in
  order to complete the request
• 4 Client Error The request contains bad syntax
  or cannot be understood
• 5 Server error The request is valid but can not
  be executed by the server

59
Error codes

• 100 Continue
• 101 Switching Protocols
• 200 OK
• 201 Created
• 202 Accepted
• 203 Non-Authoritative Information
• 204 No Content
• 205 Reset Content
• 206 Partial Content

60
Error codes II

• 300 Multiple Choices
• 301 Moved Permanently
• 302 Found
• 303 See Other
• 304 Not Modified
• 305 Use Proxy
• 307 Temporary Redirect

61
Error codes III

• 400 Bad Request
• 401 Unauthorized
• 402 Payment Required
• 403 Forbidden
• 404 Not Found
• 405 Method Not Allowed
• 406 Not Acceptable
• 407 Proxy Authentication Required
• 408 Request Time-out

62
Error codes IV

• 409 Conflict
• 410 Gone
• 411 Length Required
• 412 Precondition Failed
• 413 Request Entity Too Large
• 414 Request-URI Too Large
• 415 Unsupported Media Type
• 416 Requested range not satisfiable
• 417 Expectation failed

63
Error codes V

• 500 Internal Server Error
• 501 Not Implemented
• 502 Bad Gateway
• 503 Service Unavailable
• 504 Gateway Time-out
• 505 HTTP Version not supported

64
Response headers

• Accept-Ranges
• Age
• Etag
• Location
• Proxy-Authenticate
• Retry-After
• Server
• Vary
• WWW-Authenticate

65
Entity headers, common to response and request

• Allow
• Content-Encoding
• Content-Language
• Content-Length
• Content-Location
• Content-MD5
• Content-Range
• Content-Type
• Expires
• Last-Modified

66
The body

• The entity-body (if any) sent with an HTTP
  request or response is in a format and encoding
  defined by the entity-header fields.
• When an entity-body is included with a message,
  the data type of that body is determined via the
  header fields Content-Type and Content-Encoding

67
example status redirect

• If you use Apache, you can create a file
  .htaccess (note the dot!) with a line
• redirect 301 old_url new_url
• old_url must be a relative path from the top of
  your site
• new_url can be any URL, even outside your site
• This works on wotan by virtue of configuration
  set for apache for your home directory. Examples
• redirect 301 /krichel http//openlib.org/home/kri
  chel
• redirect 301 Cantcook.jpg http//www.foodtv.com

68
Apache

• Is a free, open-source web server that is
  produced by the Apache Software Foundation, see
  http//www.apache.org
• It has over 50 of the market share.
• It runs best on UNX systems but can run an a
  Mickeysoft OS as well.
• I will cover it here because it is freely
  available.
• Wotan runs version 2.

69
Apache in debian

• /etc/apache2/apache.conf is set main
  configuration file.
• /etc/init.d/apache2 action, where action is one
  of
• start
• stop
• restart
• is used to fire the daemon up or down.
• The daemon runs user www-data

70
Virtual host

• On a single installation of Apache several web
  servers can be supported.
• That means the server can behave in a different
  way according to how it is being addressed.
• The easiest way to implement addressing a server
  in different was is through DNS host names.

71
Directives in apache.conf

• This file contains directives that control the
  operation of the Apache server process as a whole
  (the 'global environment').
• Some of them are
• the server root, where it finds its configuration
• the time out for requests
• which port to listen
• another part of apache.conf has extensive
  settings to deal with content
• different languages
• different character sets
• different MIME types

72
Modules

• To extend Apache, modules have written. The
  modules are kept in a directory modules-available
• Modules that are enabled are listed in the
  directory modules-enabled.
• Looking at this gives you vital information about
  what the server can do.

73
Server directives

• User
• Gives the user name apache runs under
• Group
• Gives the group name the server runs under
• ServerAdmin
• Email of a human who runs the default server
• ServerName
• The name of the default server
• DocumentRoot
• The top level directory of the default server

74
Directory options

• Many options for a directory can be set with
• ltdirectory namegt instructionsltdirectorygt
• Name is the name of a directory.
• Instructions can be a whole lot of stuff

75
Directory instructions

• Options sets global options for the directory, it
  can be
• None
• All
• Or any of
• Indexes (form directory indexes?)
• Includes (all server side includes?)
• FollowSymlinks (allow to follow server-side
  includes)
• ExecCGI (allow cgi-scripts?)
• MultiViews

76
Access control

• Can be part of ltdirectorygt to set directory level
  access control
• Example
• Allow from friendly.com
• Deny from evil.com
• Sometimes you have to set the order, example
• Order allow, deny

77
Authentication

• This is used to enable password access. In that
  case the authentication is handled by a file
  .htaccess in the directory.
• The AllowOverride instruction is used to state
  what the user can do within the .htaccess file.
  Depending on its values, you can password protect
  a web site.
• We will not discuss this further here.

78
Userdir

• This sets the directory that is created by the
  user in her home directory to be accessed by
  requests to user.
• On wotan, we have
• UserDir public_html
• That is the default, actually.

79
Set up permission for user home directories

• ltDirectory /home//public_htmlgt
• AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
• Options Includes
• Options MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatc
  h IncludesNoExec
• ltLimit GET POST OPTIONS PROPFINDgt
• Order allow,deny
• Allow from all
• lt/Limitgt
• ltLimit PUT DELETE PATCH PROPPATCH MKCOL COPY
  MOVE LOCK UNLOCKgt
• Order deny,allow
• Deny from all
• lt/Limitgt
• lt/Directorygt

80
Logs

• The web server logs every transaction.
• The are severeal types of logs that used to be
  kept separately, in early days.
• 209.73.164.50 - - 26/Jan/2003091951 -0500
  "GET /ramon/videos/ntsc175.html
• HTTP/1.1" 206 808
• Additional information may be kept in the referer
  and user agent log.
• The referer log may have some interesting
  information on who links to your pages.

81
Virtual hosts

• Most apache directive can be wrapped in a
  ltvirtualhostgt lt/virtualhostgt grouping.
• This implies that the only hold for the virtual
  host. Example, from wotan
• ltVirtualHost gt
• ServerAdmin krichel_at_openlib.org
• DocumentRoot /home/connect/public_html
• ServerName connections2003.liu.edu
• ErrorLog /var/log/apache/connections2003-error
  .log
• CustomLog /var/log/apache/connectios2003-acces
  s.log common
• lt/VirtualHostgt

82
http//openlib.org/home/krichel

• Thank you for your attention!