(
Common
Gateway
Interface script) A compact program written in a language such as Perl, Tcl, C or C++ that processes data on a Web server. CGI scripts are used to process a query from the user and function as the glue between the query and the database. For example, a CGI script might pull the search data out of the GET request in the HTML form, look it up in the database (DBMS) and format the results as an HTML page that is sent back to the user.
CGI scripts were the initial mechanism used to make websites interact with databases and other applications. However, as the Web evolved, other server-side processing methods were developed. Although CGI scripts are still used, PHP and other languages are more popular. Active Server Pages (ASPs), JavaServer Pages (JSPs) and Java servlets have also been used to tie a request to a database. See
PHP,
ASP,
JSP,
servlet and
FastCGI.