Using Server Side Include Commands
Server Side Include (SSI) commands are executed by the server as it parses your HTML file. Server Side Includes can be used to include the value of various server environment variables within your HTML such as the local date and time. One might use a Server Side Include to add a signature file to a HTML file or company logo.
HTML files containing SSI must be named with a .shtml extension. (NT accounts can use .shtml, .shtm, and .stm)
SSI commands are easy to add to your HTML, but you must follow the syntax exactly:
- <!--#command cmd_argument="argument_value" -->
Be sure to leave a space after the ending quotation mark (") of the argument variable.
Using the echo Command
The echo command can be used to display the content of the five server side environment variables listed in the table below.
| Variable | Description |
| Date_Local | Current date and time (determined by server location). |
| Date_GMT | Current date and time in Greenwich Mean Time. |
| Document_Name | File name of the main document. |
| Document_URI | Path and file name of the main document |
| Last_Modified | Date and time the main document was last modified. |
Example:
Date and time determined by server location.
This code: <!--#echo var="Date_Local"
-->
will display: Sunday, 28-Nov-1999 01:17:29 EST
On NT, the "echo" date commands do not include the time, unless #config timeframe="time options" is used first.
Using the config Command
The config command can be used to configure the standard output of various environment variables. In the following example, two SSI commands are used in conjunction to produce an alternative date and time format:
This code: <!--#config timefmt="%A, %B %d, %Y
%I:%M%p" --> <!--#echo var="date_local" -->
will display: Sunday, November 28, 1999 01:17AM
Here is a breakdown of the date and time codes used in the example above:
| %A | Full weekday name |
| %B | Full month name |
| %d | Day of the month |
| %Y | Year |
| %I | Hour |
| %M | Minutes |
| %p | a.m. or p.m. |
Other SSI Commands
The fsize command might be helpful if you were to include a thumbnail image and want to display the actual file size of the original image.
<!--#fsize file="image.gif" --> output: 10k
The include command can be used to include a signature file or company logo within an HTML document. The added document or image will appear as if it were part of the original document.
<!--#include file="any.htm" -->
If the file to be included is in a different directory than the SHTML document use the virtual command argument instead. In the following example, the SHTML document resides in a subdirectory but includes a file within the account root directory:
<!--#include virtual="/any.htm" -->
The exec command can be used to execute a CGI script when the web page is loading. In the following example, the script date.pl within the relative path /cgi-local is executed.
<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-local/date.pl" -->
You could also use the virtual command instead if you need to pass
values to the script:
<!--#include
virtual="/cgi-local/script.pl?var1=value1&var2=value2" -->
This is more or less a get your feet wet page. To take the plunge, check out these sites.
