There are many scripts to change an image randomly, by date, or by a specified time period, but all of them require that you list all the images in the script. Does anyone know of a script that can take a single url and change variables in it? Specifically, the date. I want the script to take a url such as site.com/image15-10-02.gif and change it to match the current date without having to list image14-10-02.gif, image15-10-02.gif, image16-10-02.gi etc.
I can't use javascript for it because I want to use it on some msg boards, and javascript won't work.

Edited by Cypherswipe at 22:05 on October, 15th 2002

That's easy: just make the script get the date, then glue this date together with the strings "image" and ".gif" and print out this new string in an image tag

Hey! By now I know how to do that in php

And it's the same in Perl, only the syntax is slightly different

Ok, so give me the syntax.
I'm not familiar with perl, php, javascript, or any other scripting language for that matter. :-\

Which language should it be in?

Perl/cgi whichever's easier, netfirms supports both.

CGI is not a language, but an interface on servers to run scripts. CGI scripts can be written in many languages like for example Perl, C, Python and many more. So the choice is not really between CGI and Perl Since I don't know what you're trying to to exactly, I'll give you some fragments:

First of all, you need to start your script with the following lines:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use CGI qw(:standard);
The first one specifies the path to Perl (ask your host), the second one loads several standard modules.

Then, to get the date, use the following:
($day) = (localtime(time))[3];
($month) = (localtime(time))[4];
($year) = (localtime(time))[5];
$bla = join('-', $day,$month,$year);
The variable $bla then contains the date in day-month-year format.

After that, you just add the file extension and print it out (if you want, in an image tag):
$bla .= ".gif";
print "<img src="http://www.site.com/$bla">";

Edited by Mr Creosote at 23:01 on October, 15th 2002

Ignore this post; the code got all messed up when displayed...

Edited by NetDanzr at 23:08 on October, 15th 2002

Alright, what I'm trying to do is have a perl script that I can use as if it were an image url (ie I want to be able to put <img src="site.com/script.cgi"> on a page, the same way most random image scripts work), and instead of having to have a list of all the images I want to be able to put a single url that will include variables for date and month into the script. Then when the site calls the script, the script will send the modified url.

I've never seen a script being called in an image link (other than from little wannabe-hackers in certain forums). Every serious Perl/CGI script is called with either SSI include or exec command.

I've done it with some random image scripts (both perl and php). In fact, other than my forum, that's the only way I've ever used scripts.

Well, it would presumably work the same way I said before, just without the image tag in the script.

Damn, not working.
I came close, but got stuck with full date including the name of the day and the name of the month and space between everything when I just want the numeric day/month with no spaces.

Could you be more specific?

This is the url I want to adjust- http://www.grimmy.com/images/2002/mgg101602.gif
It would be something like http://www.grimmy.com/images/2002/mgg$month$day02.gif
The random img script uses this line to output the adjusted url- print "Location: $basedir$files[$num]

";
Everything I've tried either gets a 500 internal server error, or makes the resulting url http://www.grimmy.com/images/2002/mggWed%2020%20Oct%202002.gif

Could you post the script code you tried?

I can post the most recent one, but I don't remember what one got me the "http://www.grimmy.com/images/2002/mggWed%2020%20Oct%202002.gif" I've tried more than a dozen variations.

# Necessary Variables
$basedir = "http://www.grimmy.com/images/2002/mgg";
@files = ("02.gif);
http://www.grimmy.com/images/2002/mgg101602.gif

# Options
$uselog = 0; # 1 = YES; 0 = NO
$logfile = "/home/mattw/public_html/image/pics/piclog";
$gif=".gif"
# Date
$day = (localtime(time))[3];
$month = (localtime(time))[4];
$year = (localtime(time))[5];
$bla = join('-', $month,$day,$year);

# Done
#######################
srand(time ^ $$);
$num = rand(@files); # Pick a Random Number

# Print Out Header With Random Filename and Base Directory
# print "Location: $basedir$files[$num]

";
#print "Location: $basedir$bla[$gif]

";
print "Location: http://www.grimmy.com/images/2002/mgg$bla.gif";

# Log Image
if ($uselog eq '1') {
open (LOG, ">>$logfile");
print LOG "$files[$num]
";
close (LOG);
}


A lot of those variables I'm not using, but I left in the script in case I decided to try them.

Edited by Cypherswipe at 01:43 on October, 16th 2002

That script already can't work because you don't tell it the path to Perl.

It does work without the path as long as it has a .pl extension.