Overview

The FAQ program is a simple program which can display FAQ information. This uses a directory structure compatible with a number of other CGI programs available in the Cornvalley archive, but can be used in an independant fashion.

Example Usage

This program is called with a URL which specifies the FAQ file. So a sample URL might look like:

	http://www.ao.com/~regan/faq/bin/faq.cgi?file=Site/faq.faq

This sample FAQ has some information about the program.

The basic URL must specify the FAQ program. This might be done with a ScriptAlias directive in the web server configuration, or specify the program within a directory that the web server knows about for CGI programs.

The file parameter specifies where to get the faq information. If this is unspecified, the program will attempt to find all of the *.faq files in the Site and doc directories, and let the user have their choice.

FAQ File

The FAQ file is a simple test file with several types of lines. Any line that is blank, or starts with a # is ignored.

There should be one line which starts with Title, followed by the title of the FAQ. This is used as the page title, and if no FAQ file is specified, this is the title that shows up in the index of FAQs.

Next, there should be a line starting with Section.X. The X is required. In some future release this may carry other values. The data on this line is a section title.

Finally, there are question and answer lines. The question lines start with Q.X.Y and the answer lines start with A.X.Y. If the data associated with these don't fit on a single physical line, just continue on the next line with leading whitespace.

The values available in the defs.wh file are available here. This allows a certain amount of automatic configuration. In addition, the variables available from the web server are available. If the program is protected by a .htaccess file, then the user ID of the user is available in the appropriate variable.

How to obtain this program

In normal use, you will not need to get the faq package by itself as it will be included by whichever application you are using. However, if you want the packages, you can get one of the following:

• update. This is just the update program, which should be enough to bootstrap.
• faq.tar.gz. This is the file that the update program uses as data for other applications.
• faqa.tar.gz. This is the faq application. This is used to maintain this page.
• fulldist.tar.gz. This is a full tar file. You are on your own for installation.

Ideally you can run the update program and it will retreive the appropriate information.

If you have any question about the FAQ Program, send mail to regan@ao.com.

If you see something which looks like a bug, please report that as well.

You can find other programs in Regan's Cornvalley Archive sponsored by PEAK, Inc.