Question

Lets say I have a file with a .quote extension. I’d like the web server to send the contents of this file through a simple PHP script before sending it to the browser.

For example:

This is a quote

Would be transformed to

“This is a quote”

---

It looks as though I need to put something in my .htaccess along the lines of

AddHandler x-quote .quote
Action x-quote /cgi/quote.cgi

And then my script would be something like

#!usr/local/php5
<?php
    header("Content-type: text/plain");

    #I don't know how to do this step...
    echo '"'.$CONTENTS_OF_THE_FILE.'"'; 
?>

However, now I just get an error 404 when I look at the .quote file on the server.
I can think of a few things that might be causing this:

1. The cgi file is not being found and/or executed – How can I determine if cgi files are allowed to run on my server? Should the path be relative to the webroot?
2. The path to the php executable is incorrect – Is this listed somewhere in php.ini? If so, where?
3. I’m not doing the right thing in the PHP itself – What should I be doing

I do not have SSH access to the server in question.

Answer 1

Why not just run it through a normal PHP file rather than CGI and use mod_rewrite?
Your .htaccess would look like

RewriteRule ^(.+?).quote$ quote.php?f=$1

Your PHP:

<?php

header("Content-type: text/plain");

$quote = file_get_contents($_GET['f']);
echo '"'.$quote.'"';   

?>