hi,

OS is WXP...

I am simply trying to run a simple perl script... I have set up Apache 1.3 and displayed html files in /htdocs...

I have put a simple file hello.pl in /cgi-bin. The first line of this file is #!/usr/bin/perl -w... which may well be wrong as this line works for the perl installation on the machine itself... shouldn't this line point to the server's perl interpreter????? but I can't find a likely candidate

I am following a couple of guides: modperlbook.org and the SAMS book "TYPerl in 24 hours"...

when I point my browser to localhost I just get "Internal server error, see the webmaster". Unfortunately the webmaster is incompetent.

do I need to explicitly install mod_perl or sthg? I am floundering!

Mike

installing perl sounds like a good choose
you can get it at http://activeperl.com/Products/ActivePerl/

then you can point your scripts to it, and see if it works.
mod_perl is an Apache module which should be very easy to install IIRC

with XAMPP you will have everything you need in one package
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/

thanks for the reply but...
1. I think you can assume I have installed perl
2. clearly I am not finding it "easy to install", so this is not a very helpful comment
3. I don't know what "IIRC" means
4. OK I've had a look at sourceforge, thanks... but I don't want to install PHP and MYSQL and all that gubbins, I want to ***UNDERSTAND*** how to invoke my server's perl interpreter, if it has one...

Make sure the script is chmodded 755 and the perl path is correct...

Internal server error normally means that there is something wrong with the code itself. You would have to point the line #!/usr/bin/perl -wto where perl is installed. to determine that run this command

whereis perl

After you verify that make sure that you can run the script. To do that go to the directory where it is and type

chmod +x hello.pl

If that doesnt work chances are there is just an error in your code itself.