fork questions

[badbeeker]

hello, I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on how fork is used in perl/cgi. My problem is this: I wrote a perl script that builds a report in excel and saves it to a file on the server. What I would like to do is create a webform using cgi and have the form start the perl script that builds the report, and returns the excel file back to the user. The report script takes some time to execute, like 3-5 minutes or so, is this feasible in cgi? Is it possible to have the cgi script return a "please wait screen" to the user while the report script executes?

I've read a few things about fork and such but i'm really new to cgi/perl and finding any documentation / examples on this is next to nill. Can anyone explain to me how fork is used and how I would go about solving this problem?

Thanks

[nkrgupta]

Forking can very well be achieved in PERL by use of modules. I use Parallel::ForkManager (http://search.cpan.org/~dlux/Parallel-ForkManager-0.7.5/ForkManager.pm) . You'll find examples in the page. Other modules for forking can also be found at http://search.cpan.org/search?query=parallel+fork&mode=module .

As for showing a "Please wait screen", its possivle to do it. There can a number of ways to achieve it.

Get back if you need more help.