Question

Similar to technologies like ASP.NET, PHP, JSP and some other web languages which run on the server side are often called within a web pages code. For instance a web server may parse through a file hit

I don’t have any difficulty writing server / client programs, only I am unsure where to tie in to web servers such that it will realize my own tag, run it through my software and output the resulting text to the requested file (most likely a web page.)

What does one need to do in order to accomplish this tie-in with a simple custom language?

The software is coded in C++.

Answer 1

To implement your own simple custom language you would need to do the following under Apache and something very similar under IIS.

For example for an Apache server to process PHP the following configuration is required.

LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so
ScriptAlias /php/ "/usr/local/php/bin/"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
Action application/x-httpd-php /php/php

This directs the server to pass all calls to the server with the file extension .php to the php processor and replaces and execute the tags in the file.

IIS has a similar mechanism which I think is configured through ‘Handler Mappings’

I don’t personally think that creating a custom tag language is the correct route to go. You would be better served by writing a wrapper in either ASP or PHP to your C++ application. This would give you full access to the range of function in PHP or ASP that you will probably need e.g. Request parameter handling, etc.