'nph-' is the prefix you need

If your cgi script's name starts with nph-, its output will go directly back to the client, bypassing the server.

Why would you want to do this?

to avoid caching of the script's output by the server
to enable your script to break its connection with the browser before it is done.

Consider a perl script that counts from 1 to 7, taking 1 second per count.

This is a script that does that, and here is its output.

You see, the server buffered all the output and sent it back in one chunk.

On the other hand, here is the output of the same script, but renamed nph-count.cgi

(We sent the status header because the server doesn't add this to the output from nph- scripts.)

Last modified: Wed May 15 16:11:10 DST 1996