common gateway interface

On the World Wide Web, a facility for adding scripts to handle user input. It allows a Web server to communicate with other programs running on the same server in order to process data input by visitors to the Web site. CGI scripts ‘parse’ the input data, identifying each element and feeding it to the correct program for action, normally a search engine or e-mail program. The results are then fed back to the user in the form of search results or sent by e-mail. The CGI also describes how CGI applications should present their output, so that it can be displayed properly by the Web browser. CGI scripts are written in a variety of langauges, one of the most common being Perl.