Testing - Apache

Author Dan Wellman explains what the Apache HTTP web server is and how it acts as a local server so you can test PHP code or CGI scripts you've written to see how they will look live. Wellman concentrates on using it on your desktop PC purely for testing code.

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By: Dan Wellman

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May 24, 2004

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Once you have completed the above, you’ll need to do a couple of quick tests to check that you’ve configured Apache correctly. Firstly, create a standard HTML document with ‘Congratulations on a fine piece of configuration’ in between the <body tags> in the www folder, and call it index.html

Now open your browser and type:

http://localhost/index.html

Your self-praise should be displayed. In order to test SSI, create the following file in Notepad and save it as test.shtml:

SSI Test Successful!
<hr>

<hr>

Now type http://localhost/test.shtml in the address bar, and you should see a page with; ‘SSI Test Successful!’ at the top, followed by ‘Congratulations on a fine piece of configuration’ in- between two horizontal lines.

To test cgi; create the following in Notepad:

@ECHO OFF
ECHO.
ECHO This is a batch file
ECHO.
PAUSE
CLS
EXIT

Save it as test.bat in the cgi folder and in the browser address bar type;

http://localhost/cgi-bin/test.bat

This should execute the batch file, or at the very least give you an Open or Save dialogue box. If you get a ‘Page cannot be displayed error’, you may need to install XP service pack 1, which can be found on the Microsoft Update site.

Lastly, to test PHP, create the following file in Notepad and save it as test.php in the www directory:

<?
echo "It works!<br>n";
phpinfo();
?>

Now type http//localhost/test.php in the browser address bar. You should see a page with ‘It Works!’ at the top followed by a lot of information regarding PHP. That’s it! You’re all set to begin PHP or script development.