| FAQ Wizard | |
| ---------- | |
| Author: Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> | |
| Version: 1.0 | |
| Date: 6 April 1998 | |
| This is a CGI program that maintains a user-editable FAQ. It uses RCS | |
| to keep track of changes to individual FAQ entries. It is fully | |
| configurable; everything you might want to change when using this | |
| program to maintain some other FAQ than the Python FAQ is contained in | |
| the configuration module, faqconf.py. | |
| Note that the bulk of the code is not an executable script; it's an | |
| importable module. The actual script in cgi-bin is minimal. | |
| Files: | |
| faqw.py executable script to be edited and installed in cgi-bin | |
| faqwiz.py main module, lives in same directory as FAQ entry files | |
| faqconf.py main configuration module | |
| faqcust.py additional local customization module (optional) | |
| move-faqwiz.sh Script to move faqwiz entries. | |
| What's New? | |
| ----------- | |
| Version 1.0 corrects some minor bugs and uses tab-agnostic | |
| indentation; it is otherwise unchanged from version 0.9.0. | |
| Version 0.9.0 uses the re module (Perl style regular expressions) for | |
| all its regular expression needs, instead of the regex and regsub | |
| modules (Emacs style). This affects the syntax for regular | |
| expressions entered by the user as search strings (with "regular | |
| expression" checked), hence the version number jump. | |
| Setup Information | |
| ----------------- | |
| This assumes you are familiar with Python, with your http server, and | |
| with running CGI scripts under your http server. You need Python 1.5 | |
| or better. | |
| Select a place where the Python modules that constitute the FAQ wizard | |
| will live (the directory where you unpacked it is an obvious choice). | |
| This will be called the SRCDIR. This directory should not be writable | |
| by other users of your system (since they would be able to execute | |
| arbitrary code by invoking the FAQ wizard's CGI script). | |
| Create a dedicated working directory, preferably one that's not | |
| directly reachable from your http server. This will be called the | |
| FAQDIR. Create a subdirectory named RCS. Make both the working | |
| directory and the RCS subdirectory wrld-writable. (This is essential, | |
| since the FAQ wizard runs as use nobody, and needs to create | |
| additional files here!) | |
| Edit faqconf.py to reflect your setup. You only need to edit the top | |
| part, up till the line of all dashes. The comments should guide you | |
| in your edits. (Actually, you can also choose to add your changes to | |
| faqcust.py and leave faqconf.py alone. This is essential if you are | |
| maintaining multiple FAQs; see below.) | |
| Don't forget to edit the SECTION_TITLES variables to reflect the set | |
| of section titles for your FAQ! | |
| Next, edit faqw.py to reflect the pathname of your Python interpreter | |
| and the values for SRCDIR and FAQDIR that you just chose. Then | |
| install faqw.py in your cgi-bin directory. Make sure that it is | |
| world-executable. You should now be able to connect to the FAQ wizard | |
| by entering the following URL in your web client (subsituting the | |
| appropriate host and port for "your.web.server", and perhaps | |
| specifying a different directory for "cgi-bin" if local conventions so | |
| dictate): | |
| http://your.web.server/cgi-bin/faqw.py | |
| If you are unable to get this working, check your server's error_log | |
| file. The documentation for Python's cgi module in the Python Library | |
| Reference Manual gives plentyu additional information about installing | |
| and debugging CGI scripts, including setup debugging. This | |
| documentation is repeated in the doc string in the cgi module; try | |
| ``import cgi; print cgi.__doc__''. | |
| Assuming this works, you should now be able to add the first entry to | |
| your FAQ using the FAQ wizard interface. This creates a file | |
| faq01.001.htp in your working directory and an RCS revision history | |
| file faq01.001.htp,v in the RCS subdirectory. You can now exercise | |
| the other FAQ wizard features (search, index, whole FAQ, what's new, | |
| roulette, and so on). | |
| Maintaining Multiple FAQs | |
| ------------------------- | |
| If you have multiple FAQs, you need a separate FAQDIR per FAQ, and a | |
| different customization file per FAQ. The easiest thing to do would | |
| be to have the faqcust.py for each FAQ live in the FAQDIR for that | |
| FAQ, but that creates some security concerns, since the FAQDIR must be | |
| world writable: *if* someone who breaks into your system (or a | |
| legitimate user) manages to edit the faqcust.py file they can get | |
| arbitrary code to execute through the FAQ wizard. Therefore, you will | |
| need a more complex setup. | |
| The best way is probably to have a directory that is only writable by | |
| you for each FAQ, where you place the copy of faqcust.py for that FAQ, | |
| and have a world-writable subdirectory DATA for the data. You then | |
| set FAQDIR to point to the DATA directory and change the faqw.py | |
| bootstrap script to add FAQDIR/.. to sys.path (in front of SRCDIR, so | |
| the dummy faqcust.py from SRCDIR is ignored). | |
| --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) |