There
are SSI directives that allow you to retrieve certain information
about files located on your server. For example, say you have a
hypertext link in one of your documents that points to a manual
describing your software that users can download. In such a case,
you should include the size and modification date of that manual
so users can decide whether it's worth their effort to download
a document; it could be outdated or just too large for them to download.
Here's an example:
Here is the latest reference guide on CGI. You can download it
by clicking <A HREF="/cgi-refguide.ps">here</A>. The size of the file is
<!--#fsize file="/cgi-refguide.ps"--> bytes and was last modified
on <!--#flastmod file="/cgi-refguide.ps"-->.
The fsize
command, along with its lone parameter, file, displays the size
of the specified file (relative to the document root) in bytes.
You can use the flastmod
command to insert the modification date for a certain file. The
difference between the SSI variable LAST_MODIFIED
and this command is that flastmod allows you
to choose any file, while LAST_MODIFIED displays the
information for the current file. You have the option of tailoring
the output from these commands with the config
command. We will look at this later in the chapter.
