Re: OT: Page generation Do it locally or put the burden on the Web
Sivakatirswami , I can move the source text and templates to the web server and convert my local metacard button script to a .mt script and then let the web server build the page each time someone hits on it. I did much the same thing at http://www.navaching.com to serve up new daily Haiku and proverbs. The page is built just ONCE a day, automatically at the site. Every time someone hits on the page cgi checks the date (compares it with a text file) and if it's tomorrow rebuilds, if it's today then just sends the page. The trick was (is) two fold: 1) generating a new page 2) and the Status: 204 No Content cr business below. This was the hardest part until I found 204. Without 204 you'll get an error, as the web is set up on a call/response basis. What you want to do is send nothing back and that's what 204 does. So the guts of the script below only kicks in once a day, otherwise the page is sent. 204 is what made the whole thing possible. You can make it work without 204 but the FIRST hit tomorrow (the rebuilding hit) gets today's page. If your traffic is heavy and/or you aren't to concerned about that first soul who shows up tomorrow then you can drop 204. #!mc --- update.mtupdate html pages on startup -checkdate put url file:seconds.mt into it if the secondsit then put the short date into temp convert temp to seconds put (temp+86400) into temp --the daily seconds open file seconds.mt for write write temp to file seconds.mt at 0 close file seconds.mt -- generate data for new pages --update pages You have dummy pages with variables in the html and just search for and replace with the data generated -- send 'Update' page put url file:../update.html into buffer put Content-Type: text/html cr put Content-Length: the length of buffer cr cr put buffer else put Status: 204 No Content cr --a non response end startup There is a slightly better explanation in Section 8 of http://www.navaching.com/pagem.html. This deal has been running for a couple years without a hitch. Nelson Zink Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: OT: Page generation Do it locally
| --- MESSAGE metacard.v004.n426.3 --- | | From: Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Subject: Re: OT: Page generation Do it locally or ... | Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 15:16:51 -0600 (MDT) | | OR | | 3) have the server generate it, but only once per day. There are |several ways to do this. Probably easiest would be as a batch file |run from the UNIX crontab file or with an at command. You could |also set up single long-running MetaCard process that uses wait |or send .. in to just do the work every 24 hours. I'd recommend |the crontab file option for maximum reliability (no need to worry |about restarting if the server goes down or if you get logged off), |but it does require the assistance of the sysadmin. Also note that |in all versions of this you'll have to write the script as a .mt |file rather than putting it in a stack, though of course you can |access data and run handlers in other stacks from the .mt script. | | Regards, | Scott ... Swami, this is kind of a 'specific to your situation' response. Yeah, easy to do this sort of thing with cron if you have shell access, alas, you don't. You can get HOL help to make cron entries but harder to test your programs without shell access. Also they might say ...what's this? However, you could do it from the gurudeva server. Set up all your raw materials and your .mt script there. Have the daily page generation run there (triggered by a cron entry) and then deliver the lesson file to its destination on mahiai using wget. Or, do it on your Mac server, that is running Unix. Aum Aum Sadhu Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
OT: Page generation Do it locally
on 8/14/01 11:09 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Scott said: use a crontab to build the lesson once a day, for that day (wish I could, but have no access to that level of the server and sysadmin help is not part of the hosting package) or use wait or send in...sounds doable, (but...easily breakable) I would also have to stay up till midnite to start it ?? to generate tomorrow's lesson at the right time and then initiate a send in 24 hours sounds tricky and I am not sure I understand it well enough to implement in a stable way. Andu said: Another option would be to have all lessons and the html templates as custom properties of a stack in /cgi-bin. When the script is called it formats the page from the custom properties of the stack. Or something... Intriguing...never thought of accessing stacks on a server from the .mt script... so, does accessing custom properties of a single stack represent less of a hit on the CPU processor than reading and parsing lesson chunks from large text files? But, this option is kind what I thought of last night: put all the body contents of the lessons into 365 files (build them at home from the different text books) then put the header and footer on site and each time the cgi is hit it only has to read and concatenate three small files. That¹s really no more of a processor hit than your standard persistent include (s) for any .shtml file... and is probably about the same hit in the CPU as reading the custom properties of stack? Or am I wrong there? The stack option would be easily implemented, if it were substantially faster...it would only have seven custom properties totally about 2.5 meg of data that would have to parsed out and put together to generate one lesson each time the cgi was hit. I guess one could test the speed at home and bench mark it against the open/read/parse files option to determine the relative difference Hinduism Today Sivakatirswami Editor's Assistant/Production Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.HinduismToday.com, www.HimalayanAcademy.com, www.Gurudeva.org, www.hindu.org Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
OT: Page generation Do it locally or put the burden on the WebServer?
I am at a cross roads with a rather large project to put a course of lessons on the web where extracts from four text books are compiled to create a Lesson of the Day which is determined by the ordinal day of the astronomical year which begins on April 13. Now Metacard was a God send in getting this job done...but now I am at a cross roads on the final leg with two options: 1) Page generation locally, mc.cgi will simply pull a page: I can run a script at home which loads html page header, body and footer templates, then extracts the lessons 1-365 from raws text source files and generate 365 lessons totally about 7 megs of data and then FTP this to the site and create a CGI in Metacard that simply calculates the integer for the day of the year and serves up the corresponding file from a directory OR 2) Have MC Generate the pages on the server I can move the source text and templates to the web server and convert my local metacard button script to a .mt script and then let the web server build the page each time someone hits on it. The latter has lots of administrative advantages even though #1 is a relatively simply operation should changes be required... But the second option forces the web server to i) load three variables with small templates of html chunks ii) load four variables with a total of about 2.5, meg of data from the books, parse out the lessons for the day, make the necessary insertions/concatenations into the templates and serve up the page. Now, the latter obviously puts a heavier burden on the web server CPU. The question which is beyond me is...for Apache running on a Sun Sparc Solaris, is option 2 a trivial task? or given that at any point in time, 5-10 people could be hitting on the link that invokes the CGI...would using option two constitute an undue burden on the CPU of the web server? I know from running it at home that the script to read in the data and create a single lesson is almost instantaneous on a G4. Any thoughts from the experiences ones? this decision not only affects this project, but the whole direction for page deployment to the web in the future. thanks Hinduism Today Sivakatirswami Editor's Assistant/Production Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.HinduismToday.com, www.HimalayanAcademy.com, www.Gurudeva.org, www.hindu.org Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: OT: Page generation Do it locally or ...
On Tue, 14 Aug 2001 Sivakatirswami [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1) Page generation locally, mc.cgi will simply pull a page: OR 2) Have MC Generate the pages on the server I can move the source text and templates to the web server and convert my local metacard button script to a .mt script and then let the web server build the page each time someone hits on it. OR 3) have the server generate it, but only once per day. There are several ways to do this. Probably easiest would be as a batch file run from the UNIX crontab file or with an at command. You could also set up single long-running MetaCard process that uses wait or send .. in to just do the work every 24 hours. I'd recommend the crontab file option for maximum reliability (no need to worry about restarting if the server goes down or if you get logged off), but it does require the assistance of the sysadmin. Also note that in all versions of this you'll have to write the script as a .mt file rather than putting it in a stack, though of course you can access data and run handlers in other stacks from the .mt script. Regards, Scott Hinduism Today Sivakatirswami Editor's Assistant/Production Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.HinduismToday.com, www.HimalayanAcademy.com, www.Gurudeva.org, www.hindu.org Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that... Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
Re: OT: Page generation Do it locally
I am at a cross roads with a rather large project to put a course of lessons on the web where extracts from four text books are compiled to create a Lesson of the Day which is determined by the ordinal day of the astronomical year which begins on April 13. Now Metacard was a God send in getting this job done...but now I am at a cross roads on the final leg with two options: 1) Page generation locally, mc.cgi will simply pull a page: I can run a script at home which loads html page header, body and footer templates, then extracts the lessons 1-365 from raws text source files and generate 365 lessons totally about 7 megs of data and then FTP this to the site and create a CGI in Metacard that simply calculates the integer for the day of the year and serves up the corresponding file from a directory OR 2) Have MC Generate the pages on the server I can move the source text and templates to the web server and convert my local metacard button script to a .mt script and then let the web server build the page each time someone hits on it. The latter has lots of administrative advantages even though #1 is a relatively simply operation should changes be required... But the second option forces the web server to i) load three variables with small templates of html chunks ii) load four variables with a total of about 2.5, meg of data from the books, parse out the lessons for the day, make the necessary insertions/concatenations into the templates and serve up the page. Now, the latter obviously puts a heavier burden on the web server CPU. The question which is beyond me is...for Apache running on a Sun Sparc Solaris, is option 2 a trivial task? or given that at any point in time, 5-10 people could be hitting on the link that invokes the CGI...would using option two constitute an undue burden on the CPU of the web server? I know from running it at home that the script to read in the data and create a single lesson is almost instantaneous on a G4. Any thoughts from the experiences ones? this decision not only affects this project, but the whole direction for page deployment to the web in the future. Another option would be to have all lessons and the html templates as custom properties of a stack in /cgi-bin. When the script is called it formats the page from the custom properties of the stack. Or something... thanks Hinduism Today Sivakatirswami Editor's Assistant/Production Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.HinduismToday.com, www.HimalayanAcademy.com, www.Gurudeva.org, www.hindu.org Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list. . Regards, Andu __ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/ Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm Please send bug reports to [EMAIL PROTECTED], not this list.
