What :: UBB Compression with cgi_buffer.pm

Version :: 6.1.0 PB 2

Info :: As promised in the recent U-zine article. Now you can dramatically reduce bandwidth and download times with an easy to use perl module.

Demo :: http://www.ubbdev.com/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi

Credits :: WiLD for pointing it out to us

Files :: http://ubbdev.com/hacks/6.1/Compress.zip

How To ::


Open ultimatebb.cgi, uncomment use strict; and use vars etc etc (lines #30 and #35) and add this:

require Modules::Compress::cgi_buffer;
import Compress::cgi_buffer
$cgi_buffer::generate_etag = 0;

immediately before your use strict; so that it looks like this:

require Modules::Compress::cgi_buffer;
import Compress::cgi_buffer
$cgi_buffer::generate_etag = 0;
use strict;
use Fcntl ':flock';
use UBBCGI qw(:cgi);
use UBBCGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser set_message);

use vars qw(%etc etc


That should be all you need to do, tho you may want to clear cache...

[ 09-16-2001: Message edited by: AllenAyres ]

Runs so much faster over here.

Warning it requires Compress::Zlib which is not installed by default on most Perl-capable hosts.

q

As stated in the article

All recent versions of activestate perl come with it... and if you are able to install this perl module on your server, you should be able to install the other required modules from cpan

Sounds like one good mod. I'll give it a try soon.

is this better than mod_gzip?

I believe they both use Compress::Zlib - performance should be comparable. I have never checked out mod_gzip because it's written for apache and I've never used an apache server.

WiLD is doing some performance testing and said he would report back his results.

ISAPI compression on a windows server is supposed to perform better than both, but takes a little more work to set up for dynamic files. We're using it for the static files here.

Allen, where can i find httpcomp.dll??

this link http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/iis/httpcomp.asp gives me an 404 not found error
TIA

Theoretically, it'll be the same but mod_gzip allows more tweaking (in terms of compression); this module does not (if it uses Compress::Zlib's default gzip mechanism, compression is set at 4 iirc; 1 would be best for speed purposes and CPU load).

Anyways, if you already have mod_gzip on your server and it's compressing CGI output, don't bother to install this hack; it'll just waste CPU clicks.

q

[ September 07, 2001: Message edited by: qasic ]

Here's some more info:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q255/9/51.ASP

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treevie...ze/perflink.asp

Yes, if you've already installed some other form of compression, this would be redundant. It'd be like installing who's online twice

wow Allen this is awesome
w/o cgi_buffer.pm one thread with 2 replies generates ~17KB
with cgi_buffer.pm this same thread generates only ~3KB

thank you very much for this one Allen
rated

I really want to use this but each time i download cgi_buffer-0.3.tgz , it opens in winzip saying corrupt error.

Am i looking at the right download here?

I had the same problem... the download is trying to save it as a .tar file... be sure and save it as a .tgz file when you save it in the download. Winzip will then open it properly into a tar file and then unpack it after you've saved it to your computer.

Just a reminder this is for servers tht you are able to install perl modules on, either a dedicated server or a shared one a host doesn't mind installing perl modules for you.

Actually, just rename the file so it ends in .tar.gz and you'll have no problems.

qasic

n/m problem fixed. Dang! Pretty fast!

[ September 07, 2001: Message edited by: raiyan ]

Where can I get THIS file?

That's one of the modules mentioned that's required for using this. If you are using activestate perl, it's included. If not, I believe you can get all the modules from cpan.org

I'm using ActiveState Perl and it's not included here

I got some versions from there, but they aren't IO::String (like Convertor::Ethiopian::String, Brute::String)

Maybe it's only the most recent version... I am using 629. Did you also install the perl package manager (PPM)?

Some links:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Reference/Products/ASPNTOC-ACTIVEPERL-004

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Reference/Products/ActivePerl/lib/IO.html

hmmm... maybe I have it loaded from something else... if you see where the difference is, can you report back here? You might need to get the module from cpan after all

hey LK
grab it here
http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/IO/IO-String-1.01.tar.gz

PS ont forget to save it as .tgz