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Server Side Includes Tutorial

Table Of Contents

The SSI Format

<!--#command tag1="value1" tag2="value2" -->

Commands and associated tags

• include

  The include directive inserts the text of a document into the parsed document. Any included file is subject to the usual access control. This command accepts two tags:

  • virtual is used when the included file is not in the same directory as the web page calling it.
  • file is used when the included file is located in the same directory (or subdirectory) as the web page calling it.
• config

  The config directive controls various aspects of the file parsing.

  • errmsg controls what message is sent back to the client if an error includes while parsing the document. When an error occurs, it is logged in the server's error log.
  • timefmt gives the server a new format to use when providing date and time. This is a string compatible with the strftime library call under most versions of UNIX.
  • sizefmt determines the formatting to be used when displaying the size of a file. Valid choices are bytes, for a formatted byte count (formatted as 1,234,567), or abbrev for an abbreviated version displaying the number of kilobytes or megabytes the file occupies.
• echo prints the value of one of the include variables (defined below). The only valid tag to this command is var, whose value is the name of the variable you wish to echo.
• fsize prints the size of the specified file. Valid tags are the same as with the includecommand. The resulting format of this command is subject to the sizefmt parameter to theconfig command.
• flastmod prints the last modification date of the specified file, subject to the formatting preference given by the timefmt parameter to config. Valid tags are the same as with theinclude command.
• exec executes a given shell command or CGI script. It must be activated to be used. Please note that it is NOT activated on Webserve.
  • cmd will execute the given string using /bin/sh. All of the variables defined below are defined, and can be used in the command.
  • cgi will execute the given virtual path to a CGI script and include its output. The server does not perform error checking to make sure your script didn't output horrible things like a GIF, so be careful. It will, however, interpret any URL Location: header and translate it into an HTML anchor.
    
    

SSI Environment Variables

• DOCUMENT_NAME: The current filename.
• DOCUMENT_URI: The virtual path to this document (such as /docs/tutorials/foo.shtml).
• DATE_LOCAL: The current date, local time zone.
• DATE_GMT: Same as DATE_LOCAL but in Greenwich mean time.
• LAST_MODIFIED: The last modification date of the current document.
• HTTP_USER_AGENT: The visitor's browser software
• HTTP_REFERER: The page from which the visitor came
• SERVER_SOFTWARE: The version of the web server
• SERVER_NAME: Your server name
• REMOTE_ADDR: The remote IP address of the the visitor

The timefmt tag Values

The following is the list of possible values for the timefmt tag. Any time and dates are printed subject to the currently configured timefmt.

Code Examples

1. The following examples all use the syntax: <!--#echo var="Variable" -->

2. Displaying Current Date and Time in different formats:

3. Displaying Last Modified Date for your web site: