Mod_Perl 2.0 Header question

[Justin Luster]

Hi, I was hoping to get a bit of help on how to send the proper HTTP headers using Mod_Perl.  We create Perl scripts and then ship them out to our clients for them to run on their servers.  The script should work on regular CGI and Mod_Perl if they have it.  Things have worked fine so far.  But now Mod_Perl 2.0 is starting to be installed on servers throughout the world and I need to modify my script so that it will work with it also.  I only use Mod_Perl to speed up regular CGI using “registry”.   I have a main.pl file that “requires” a helper.pl file.  In the helper.pl I have the code that produces the HTTP header.  It is in the helper.pl because both main.pl and main2.pl need it.   My current code looks something like this:   sub PrintHeader {             my $strOut = "";             my $blnModPerl = 0;             my $intModPerlVersion = 0;             my $strDefaultContentType = "";               $strDefaultContentType .= "Content-type: text/html\r\n\r\n";               if (exists($ENV{'MOD_PERL'}) && defined($ENV{'MOD_PERL'}))             {                         $blnModPerl = 1;                           $intModPerlVersion = $ENV{'MOD_PERL'};                           # Change mod_perl/1.XX to 1.X                         $intModPerlVersion =~ s/mod_perl\/(\d\.\d)(.*?)$/$1/i;             }               if ($ENV{'PERL_SEND_HEADER'} || ($blnModPerl == 0))             {                         $strOut = $strDefaultContentType;             }             else             {                         my $r = Apache->request;                                                 $r->content_type('text/html');                           #Only call send_http_header for mod_perl versions prior to (1.9) in the 1.26 series                         #Remember to update this in admin.pl too                         if ($intModPerlVersion < 1.9)                         {                                     $r->send_http_header;                         }             }               $authlib::blnPrintedHeaders = 1;               return $strOut; }   I find that this breaks under some versions of Mod_Perl 2.0.  I’m working with two older versions: 1.99_07-dev and 1.99_12 both on Linux machines.   My confusion is how to send the proper 2.0 header.  In my in-house version Apache->request; does not seem to work.  The 2.0 documentation says use Apache2::RequestUtil but that does not work either.  My clients version however works with Apache->request and I’m confused as to why.   The bottom line is I want to have a function like the one above that will work for CGI, mod_perl 1.0 and mod_perl 2.0.  I’d like this function to be in a common library (helper.pl) so that main1.pl and main2.pl can use it.   From reading the documentation I realize that there is a function called “handler()” and that you can get a hold of $r somehow.  So I tried it out and came up with something like this:   use strict;   my $ModPerlObj = @_[0];   main::main();   package main;   sub main {             authlib::Initialize($ModPerlObj); }   This seems to work because as I understand it Mod_Perl wraps up the contents of main.pl and places it inside a function called “handler( )”.  “handler( )” then receives an Apache Object.  So I’m getting it using @_[0] and then passing it into my function.   Is this bad practice?  Any “cons” to doing it this way?   I just want a simple way to create the header.   Please help.   Thanks,   Justin