NAME¶
Mason - High-performance, dynamic web site authoring system
VERSION¶
version 1.54
SYNOPSIS¶
PerlModule HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler
<Location />
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler
</Location>
DESCRIPTION¶
Mason is a tool for building, serving and managing large web sites. Its features
make it an ideal backend for high load sites serving dynamic content, such as
online newspapers or database driven e-commerce sites.
Actually, Mason can be used to generate any sort of text, whether for a web site
or not. But it was originally built for web sites and since that's why most
people are interested in it, that is the focus of this documentation.
Mason's various pieces revolve around the notion of "components''. A
component is a mix of HTML, Perl, and special Mason commands, one component
per file. So-called "top-level" components represent entire
web-pages, while smaller components typically return HTML snippets for
embedding in top-level components. This object-like architecture greatly
simplifies site maintenance: change a shared component, and you instantly
changed all dependent pages that refer to it across a site (or across many
virtual sites).
Mason's component syntax lets designers separate a web page into programmatic
and design elements. This means the esoteric Perl bits can be hidden near the
bottom of a component, preloading simple variables for use above in the HTML.
In our own experience, this frees content managers (i.e., non-programmers) to
work on the layout without getting mired in programming details. Techies,
however, still enjoy the full power of Perl.
Mason works by intercepting innocent-looking requests (say,
http://www.yoursite.com/index.html) and mapping them to requests for Mason
components. Mason then compiles the component, runs it, and feeds the output
back to the client.
Consider this simple Mason component:
% my $noun = 'World';
Hello <% $noun %>!
How are ya?
The output of this component is:
Hello World!
How are ya?
In this component you see a mix of standard HTML and Mason elements. The bare
'%' prefixing the first line tells Mason that this is a line of Perl code. One
line below, the embedded <% ... %> tag gets replaced with
the return value of its contents, evaluated as a Perl expression.
Beyond this trivial example, components can also embed serious chunks of Perl
code (say, to pull records from a database). They can also call other
components, cache results for later reuse, and perform all the tricks you
expect from a regular Perl program.
WAIT - HAVE YOU SEEN MASON 2?¶
Version 1 of Mason (this distribution) -- has been around since 1998, is in wide
use, and is very stable. However it has not changed much in years and is no
longer actively developed.
Version 2 of Mason -- Mason -- was released in February of 2011. It is being
very actively developed and has a much more modern architecture. If you are
just starting out, we recommend you give Mason 2 a try.
For a summary of differences between Mason 1 and 2 see
http://www.openswartz.com/2011/02/21/announcing-mason-2/
INSTALLATION¶
Mason has been tested under Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, HPUX, and Win32. As an
all-Perl solution, it should work on any machine that has working versions of
Perl 5.00503+, mod_perl, and the required CPAN modules.
Mason has a standard MakeMaker-driven installation. See the README file for
details.
CONFIGURING MASON¶
This section assumes that you are able to install and configure a mod_perl
server. Relevant documentation is available at
http://www.apache.org (Apache)
and
http://perl.apache.org (mod_perl). The mod_perl mailing list, archive, and
guide are also great resources.
The simplest configuration of Mason requires a few lines in your httpd.conf:
PerlModule HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler
<Location />
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler
</Location>
The PerlModule directive simply ensures that the Mason code is loaded in the
parent process before forking, which can save some memory when running
mod_perl.
The <Location> section routes all requests to the Mason handler, which is
a simple way to try out Mason. A more refined setup is discussed in the
Controlling Access via Filename Extension section of the administrator's
manual.
Once you have added the configuration directives, restart the server. First, go
to a standard URL on your site to make sure you haven't broken anything. If
all goes well you should see the same page as before. If not, recheck your
Apache config files and also tail your server's error log.
If you are getting "404 Not Found" errors even when the files clearly
exist, Mason may be having trouble with your document root. One situation that
will unfortunately confuse Mason is if your document root goes through a
symbolic link. Try expressing your document root in terms of the true
filesystem path.
Next, try adding the tag <% 2+2 %> at the top of some HTML file. If you
reload this page and see a "4", Mason is working!
DOCUMENTATION ROADMAP¶
Once Mason is on its feet, the next step is to write a component or two. The
Mason Developer's Manual is a complete tutorial for writing, using, and
debugging components. A reference companion to the Developer's Manual is the
Request API documentation, HTML::Mason::Request.
Whoever is responsible for setting up and tuning Mason should read the
Administrator's Manual, though developers will also benefit from reading it as
well. This document covers more advanced configuration scenarios and
performance optimization. The reference companion to the Administrator's
manual is the Parameters Reference, which describes all the parameters you can
use to configure Mason.
Most of this documentation assumes that you're running Mason on top of mod_perl,
since that is the most common configuration. If you would like to run Mason
via a CGI script, refer to the HTML::Mason::CGIHandler documentation. If you
are using Mason from a standalone program, refer to the Using Mason from a
Standalone Script section of the administrator's manual.
There is also a book about Mason,
Embedding Perl in HTML with
Mason, by Dave Rolsky and Ken Williams, published by O'Reilly and
Associates. The book's website is at
http://www.masonbook.com/. This book goes
into detail on a number of topics, and includes a chapter of recipes as well
as a sample Mason-based website.
GETTING HELP AND SOURCES¶
Questions and feedback are welcome, and should be directed to the Mason mailing
list. You must be subscribed to post.
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mason-users
You can also visit us at "#mason" on
<
irc://irc.perl.org/#mason>.
Bugs and feature requests will be tracked at RT:
http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=HTML-Mason
bug-html-mason@rt.cpan.org
The latest source code can be browsed and fetched at:
http://github.com/jonswar/perl-html-mason/tree/master
git clone git://github.com/jonswar/perl-html-mason.git
SEE ALSO¶
Mason
AUTHORS¶
- •
- Jonathan Swartz <swartz@pobox.com>
- •
- Dave Rolsky <autarch@urth.org>
- •
- Ken Williams <ken@mathforum.org>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE¶
This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Jonathan Swartz.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.