README.xml

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<article version="5.2" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook">
  <info>
    <title>README</title>

    <author>
      <personname><firstname>Andrew</firstname><surname>Speer</surname></personname>
    </author>

    <pubdate>2025-08-05</pubdate>
  </info>

  <section>
    <title>Introduction</title>

    <para>WebDyne is a dynamic content generation engine for Apache/mod_perl and PSGI web servers (such as Plack and Starman). HTML documents with embedded Perl code are processed to produce
    dynamic HTML output.</para>

    <para>An installer is included in the base WebDyne module for Apache, or a PSGI variant is included for use with Plack. Once WebDyne is installed any file with a <filename>.psp</filename>
    extension is treated as a WebDyne source file. It is parsed for WebDyne tags (such as <tag>&lt;perl&gt;</tag> and <tag>&lt;block&gt;</tag>) which are interpreted and executed on the server
    as appropriate to generate a compliant HTML document. The resulting output is then sent to the browser.</para>

    <para>Once parsed paged are are optionally stored in a partially compiled format, speeding up subsequent processing. The aim of WebDyne is to make coding web pages with Perl components a
    faster, easier and more enjoyable experience.</para>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Getting Started</title>

    <para>Install the WebDyne module from CPAN using cpanminus (cpanm) or cpan, and install Plack for the PSGI version.</para>

    <programlisting language="bash">#  Use cpan if you don't have cpanm
#
$ cpanm WebDyne
Building and testing Webdyne-2.04 ... OK

$ cpanm Plack
Building and testing Plack-1.0051 ... OK</programlisting>

    <para>Run the PSGI variant in test mode and connect to the server to check that it is working.</para>

    <programlisting language="bash">$ webdyne.psgi --test
HTTP::Server::PSGI: Accepting connections at http://0:5000/</programlisting>

    <para>Create an app.psp file in the appropriate web server home directory. Don't be put off by the shortcut &lt;start_html&gt; tag, you can still use traditional tags if you like.</para>

    <programlisting language="html"># Create file called app.psp with this content.
#
&lt;start_html&gt;
The local server time is: &lt;perl&gt;localtime()&lt;/perl&gt;</programlisting>

    <para>Run the PSGI variant against that directory</para>

    <programlisting language="bash"># 
$ webdyne.psgi /location/of/app.psp
HTTP::Server::PSGI: Accepting connections at http://0:5000/
</programlisting>

    <para>See the documentation at <link xlink:href="https://webdyne.org" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://webdyne.org</link> for more examples and information.</para>
  </section>
</article>