Posting to a web server (general question)

Question

Sorry, this isn't really a programming question but it's for a program I am making. My program needs to be able to upload files via many methods including HTTP, and to develop HTTP functionality I need to have a web server to post too - but the concept is failing me.

I use Mac OS X Snow Leopard but also Windows 7 in Parallels for my development - how easy would it be to create a web server in either of these OS's? Also, how does a web server become 'post-able', where I can upload to it?

Thanks

Answer 1

Web-servers such as Apache are available for both platforms at no cost.

To allow upload of files you need a suitable HTML file and a back-end program to handle the post request. The simplest method I have used was based on a small CGI perl script.

Google will find examples such as http://perlmeme.org/tutorials/cgi_upload.html or http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/uploading-files-cgi-perl