vB Easy Auction v1.1
 

vB Easy Auction v1.1
by yoyoyoyo

Don't let the length of this post fool you... this is actually very simple to setup... I just tend to get long-winded at times...

WHAT YOU NEED:

* vBulletin Software (for vBulletin integration - the perl files will work fine without vBulletin)
* Web server account that has CGI capabilities, and will allow you to run executable cgi files.
* Perl 5.6 or better installed on that web server. Contact your server administrator if you are unsure (most servers are running version 5.8.X, so this should not be a problem). If you do not have perl installed then read a little further below about perlsp.
* Access to either Sendmail, BLAT, or Sockets mail. No mail can be sent without at least ONE of the above. If you are using either BLAT or Sockets mail (NT users usually), you will also need access to an SMTP mail server. Contact your server administrator to find out if you do. Note: the SMTP mail server needs to allow the user to send mail without requiring them to log into the server.

OVERVIEW

This will add auctions to your site quickly and easily. Simply edit the auction.pl file and admin.pl files to reflect your server's filepaths, etc., and then upload the files to your server. Create a template and make a couple edits to your vbulletin files to allow navigation to your auctions and that is it! The core of the auction is based on a HEAVILY modified version of EveryAuction Release Version 1.53, and can be further edited or modified to suit your needs, as long as you follow the GNU public license.

SEE POST #1 OF THIS THREAD FOR INSTALL INFO, ETC.

If members of your site are interested in participating in the auctions then they need to register for them also, since this is not integrated with the vBulletin database for security reasons (since people put actual contact info, etc. in their auction registrations).

FEATURES

• a comprehensive, professional user interface that makes navigation simple
• auction classifieds or traditional auction settings
• configuration takes only a few minutes if perl is installed on your system
• colors and tables can be easily changed to match the look and feel of your system
• supports HTML front-ends
• unlimited categories and items
• category listing lists number of open items per category
• item listings list items, closing time, and current bid
• automated e-mail validation registration system keeps non-legitimate users out of your database
• system generated easy-to-remember (and user changeable) passwords sent to users via e-mail
• users must "sign" an agreement upon registration.
• optional non-registration mode allows fast posting or bidding by anyone
• users may update their contact information, password or Registration E-Mail.
• any registered user can post an item using the easy-to-use submission system
• images can be posted along with an item description and starting bid
• supports reserve prices which allow a seller to set a minimum sell price above the minimum bid
• seller determines minimum bid increment and length of the auction
• item preview before an item is actually posted
• each item is given a unique ID number and URL, so sellers can advertise their auctions in newsgroups or via a link
• item display lists bidding history and product information
• displays Closed items in a table with Radio Buttons for Selection
• bidding is easy with the minimum bid price displayed on the item page along with a quick bid form
• sellers can choose the ending time of an auction
• amount of time left in each auction is displayed in the listing
• outbid e-mails automatically sent by the system with a link back to the auction item
• sniper protection: auctions can close a configurable time after the last bid and the designated closing time, or the admin can choose to disable the sniper protection
• integrated search engine allows search by username or keyword
• users can view closed auction history and contact information depending on whether he/she is the buyer, seller, or losing bidder
• auction items may be deleted or updated by the system administrator using a password
• e-mail sent to both high-bidder and seller on auction close
• fast re-posting of items that were not sold
• data file construction allows experienced administrators to add, remove, or edit items or users by simply editing a plain text file
• everything is compressed into a single lightning-fast perl script
• advanced file locking system eliminates the risk of data corruption even during heavy bidding
• separate secure Admin Console
• pagebreaks in listings
• automatically updates the bids on the item display page
• seller can edit an auction if there are no bids.
• auto-prune of old inactive user data (admin specified length of time)
• prevents email registration from the same address more then once
• users must enter valid e-mail addresses when signing up for the auctions.
• enter e-mail addresses twice
• "e-mail auction to friend" option
• view all auctions option

LEGAL NOTICE

Version: vB Easy Auction 1.0
Last update: 07/20/2005

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
See the GNU General Public License for more details.

modifications and integration with vbulletin
released at vbulletin.org by yoyoyoyo
No additional rights reserved by the author

Matt Hahnfeld DBA EverySoft expressly emphasizes that
this program is *NOT* an official release version of
EveryAuction, and that this program is *NOT* sanctioned
or distributed by Matt Hahnfeld DBA EverySoft.

Dieter Werner expressly emphasizes that
this program is *NOT* an official release version of
eAuction, and that this program is *NOT* sanctioned
or distributed by Dieter Werner.

vB Easy Auction for vBulletin is not affiliated with eBay or jelsoft or any affiliated companies.

The author of this release agrees to these statements absolutely.

VERSION 1.1: Added the optional ability to allow users to create their own auction sites using the easy-auction ezauctgn.zip script.

PLEASE CLICK INSTALL IF YOU FIND THIS USEFUL!

I was going to call this vBay, but decided that vb.org didn't want you know who breathing down their necks :D

INSTALLATION OPTIONS:

This hack offers 5 (actually 6) different options of auction scripts for you to play with:

1) First is a version of EveryAuction that I have modified. It is basic looking but has alot of features. I purposely made the layout bare to match any forum, and you can control the look and feel with the style tags. You can also edit the html within the config.pl and auction.pl files to add, change the tables to suit your needs. Both files are heavily commented, so it should not be hard to find your way around them. It should be fairly easy to add additional features as needed, such as feedback and Accounting (if you wish to charge for auction listings, etc.), however I have left the accounting end of the script off of my version (though you will see a link to it in the admin area- this is in case you want to add it in yourself). You can find more addons at the everysoft addon database (URL BELOW).

2) If you are interested in starting from scratch and adding all of your own addons yourself you can use the second option, which is the original EveryAuction script,which you can grab from and then go to the addon database and pick and choose which files best suit your needs. It's all very easy, and you should not be intimidated by the fact that it is a perl script, since in many ways perl scripting is very intuitive especially if you are familiar with html and javascript standards.

3) The third option is to try a "new" version of EveryAuction that has been developed by people other than the author: EA 1.7, and it is available at 4) The fourth option is to run the eAuction script (which in turn is also a modified version of the EveryAuction script). This script has a few extra features, however it is harder to modify since it has already been modified quite a bit. It still can be done, but you will have to make sure not to cross any variables. This script is setup for multi-language support, and already has german language support built in. You can find the eAuction script at: 5) Download the attached ezauctgn.zip file to allow your users to create their own individualized auction sites that you host! the Easy Auction Site Generator - uses EveryAuction from EverySoft to offer Auction Site Hosting, modified with more features and abilities. After you install this script at your site, you offer your guests the ability to create their own Auction Sites. Then link the template iframe to your easy auction's index.html page (be sure to follow the instructions enclosed in that zip file on which files to edit and how to edit them). Each auction site can be tailored and the owner may specify the following:

• choose the color scheme for the auction site
• define the directory where closed auctions will be moved
• define the directory where registration information is kept
• define "sniper" protection period (how many minutes past the last bid to hold auction).
• allow users to post items
• select file locking
• select the categories to include in the auction

Please see THIS post for more information.

6) There is another option, and that is to use the EveryAuction DB file found at everysoft, which is a MySQL version of the EveryAuction script.

INSTALLATION:

- make sure that your server supports perl scripts, and is running at least Perl 5.6.0 or greater. Notice that the script requires Perl 5.6.0 (or higher) !! I don't know whether this can run on a server that has under Perl 5.5.x If the script does not work for you then try placing the script in a subdirectory of your cgi-bin directory. Edit the top of the script to point to perl. The current version of perl is 5.8.X, so most servers should not have a problem with this if they offer perl/cgi access.

#!/usr/bin/perl This must point to the Perl version on your server. If you don't know it, ask your host or run info.cgi that comes included in the zip on your server to get it. In most cases #!/usr/bin/perl or #!/usr/bin/perl5 works OK. If you do not have Perl installed on your server all is not lost! You can try a file called perlsp that provides an ASP/PHP/JSP like environment for Perl on all servers, dedicated or virtual, with everything that you expect from a web programming environment (and before only knew from PHP or ASP) .

- Follow the install instructions and make sure that the files are CHMOD'ed properly.

- To add your own categories slook at the top of the script in the config area of the script that tells you how to configure them. The script is well-documented, so just read the areas that are comments and make the changes noted.

EDIT THE STYLESHEET & HTML

It is not necessary, but you can change the style to match the look and feel of your auction by searching for the STYLE tags and edit the area inbetween to match the CSS of your forum. You can alternately link to any style sheet on your site, just as you would any other php or html page on your site. You can further edit the html parts of the auction.pl file, such as the tables, etc. to any layout you want, so if you are a layout/html wizard then you can customize the front end of this script easily, just be sure to preserve the continuity of the functionality in the process.

If you have multiple styles/skins that is not a problem, but you must have one auction.pl file for each skin, and have each skin point to a different file. Edit each one (between the style tags) to be the same style as your vbulletin skin. You can rename the file with no problem. You can call it auction1.pl, auction2.pl, etc. (or you can name them vbulletindefault_auction.pl it doesn't matter as long as you keep track of which is which) and add different templates to each style, with each one pointing to the proper auction.pl file for that style. Just keep all of the auction.pl files in the same folder and they will all pull data from the same auction database. You must keep them in the same folder as each other, otherwise each style will have different auctions! Also be sure to edit the part of the config area that asks you to define the scripts name.

There are also certain areas that you may want to change to suit your needs/layout, so don't be afraid to edit the html, just be sure to save backups of everything.

If you do edit your own auction.pl file (spiff up the html, etc.) and feel like sharing, PLEASE feel free to upload it to this thread!

ADD-ONS

For more addons to this script you can go to:
NOTE: Many of the addons at that site need tweaking to work with each other, and many do not seem to work at all, and others lead to error 404 files (file not found) but it is still a very flexible script and you the site is a great resource to help you edit EveryAuction to suit your needs. Just about every auction feature you can think of has been integrated in to this script at one time or another to a degree.

LONG IFRAME ISSUE

NOTE: The only way that I could figure out to effectively manage to pull the output of the perl script in to a vbulletin template is with an iframe. The drawback to an iframe being that it does not resize with the amount of data that it pulls in, so if the page is really long and the iframe is too small then the result is that the iframe will develop annoying scroll bars, which are very ugly, messy and undesirable. To counter that I had to create an iframe that was very long, so there will be a bit of extra white space between the bottom of the auction content and the footer of your forum page. If anyone can come up with a better way to accomplish this, or to pass perl variables on to a php page then please post to the release thread of this hack at vbulletin.org.

Before you decide the page is too long, and decide just to simply go ahead and reduce the iframe, try posting a test auction, with a long description and a picture, and you will see why I decided the iframe needed to be that long, however of course you can always reduce the size as needed if you decide it is still too long.

NOTE: One way to avoid this issue is to add the same header and footer to your auction.pl (in the areas that they provide for that- just read the html) and style your <style> tags to be the same as your forum, and then just simply link people to your auction.pl file instead of your auction.php file. This way your header and fiiter will dynamically resize with your auction listings, and then your header can simply link them back to the forums! Just be sure to keep the auction navigation links intact or nobody will be able to find their way around your auctions.

TROUBLESHOOTING:

If you are getting errors it is probably one of these:
1) Path to directories (basepath) not set correctly
2) File permissions not set correctly
3) Server does not allow executable perl files with write permissions, or any files CHMOD'ed to 755
4) Template name not spelled correctly, or capitalized instead of small letters: auction

Some servers will also let you run a .pl or a .cgi script from any folder, so if you are STILL getting errors at this point then try uploading the folder named 'auction' to your forum root directory, and then change your config area of the auction script accordingly. If that works better then change the file path in the template to point to that directory instead of your cgi-bin directory. In fact, that is how I originally wrote the instructions, but realized that some people who can't run perl scripts from any directory other than the cgi-bin and would be out of luck, so by default I decided to tell everyone to put it in the cgi-bin directory, but as I mentioned that is not necessary in many cases. If the file paths are correct, and the files are chmodd'ed correctly and it is still not working then it most likely is a server issue, so check to make sure that your server will allow you to run executable cgi scripts with 755 CHMOD.

NOTE: If you get an error message like the one attached then you don't have the file paths set properly in the auction.pl file. The script creates the new category folders based upon the permissions you give it when CHMOD'ing it, and also based on what you have set as a basepath in the script. The folders are automatically created when the script is run the first time and the script can't create the folders it needs in the right place if the basepath is set incorrectly, so it can't find them, and thus the error.

The simplest way to fix this is to find the basepath to your 'cgi-bin/auction' directory, and the easiest way to do that is to use the info.cgi file that is in your cgi-bin/auction directory (and comes with this hack), is by typing in this address in to your web browser:

(of course substitute "yoursite.com" with the name of your site, but keep the rest the same)

Now look in the area where it says: "SCRIPT_FILENAME" and take note of the URL that follows it on the same line. It should look something like:

Chop off the end (the info.cgi part) and voila, there is your filepath that you need to put in the area of auction.pl that says:

(color and bold for emphasis)

If you STILL get errors, after you make sure that all of the above is correct then it could also be the case that your server simply does not allow executable files to have write permissions.

END NOTE

NOTE: I did not write the core of this file, it is based on a GNU public license file, and I added the hacks found online, and also tweaked a few of the subroutines as I saw fit, so if the auction scripts included with this file do not work or give you errors then I suggest editing your own version of EveryAuction to suit your needs. I will not give support for the EveryAuction script, but I will be happy to help with the integration of the script with vBulletin, as it pertains to this script, via the support thread at vBulletin.org.

OUTSTANDING!!!!!!!

I have been wiating for something like this!!!!! awesome! Thanks :)

Has anyone installed and tried this yet?

I am doing the install right now... looks pretty straightforward so far but I am getting the following error when running the test script I am almost certain it is a path issue so probably no big deal...

Delete the folder "auctions" in the cgi-bin folder and create a new one.

Then re-upload the contents of the "auctions" folder without actually uploading the folder.

EDIT: Actually, it IS a path issue- see the top post. I was able to replicate this error if the auction.pl script does not have the basepath setting at the top of the config section set properly. There are only a few settings to worry about, so read the script thoroughly- it is well documented and easy to understand.

An easy way to find you file path settings is to go to the info.cgi file and look for the path it says under "SCRIPT_FILENAME" and that will display your file path.

the URL to your info.cgi file will be something like this:

Code:

---

http://yoursite.com/cgi-bin/auction/info.cgi

---

Look at the "SCRIPT_FILENAME" setting display and it will look something like:just cut off the info.cgi from the end and there is your needed file basepath! :D

paste that info in here:

I'm still getting the same error..





Thanks for the support!! :)

Isn't supposed to have " " instead of ' ' ????

nice :)

I may try to install this a bit later :3 Thanks!!

THose were the old instructions.. they must have gotten in the zip somehow. I will update it.

As far as your error goes- I got the same error when I tried installing it myself and did not set all of the config area settings that I needed to set, but when I fixed them I did not get that error. The problem is in your config area of auction.pl : READ IT THOROUGHLY

Also make sure that all files are CHMOD'ED as mentioned in the instructions.

Also- please note that keeping the info.cgi file in your cgi-bin allows anyone to read that info if they know that the file is there, so you may want to rename it to something else.

Zip updated- sorry for all of that old stuff in that folder. Didn't mean to confuse anyone. It should be a much smaller download now :D

Ok so does this integrate the vb styles or that has to be done manually?

The actual style sheet CSS part of the styles needs to be edited manually between the <style> tags in the auction script. There is only one <head> section, so if you open it up in a text editor and search you will find it, and you will see that it is basic html. As I mentioned in the install info, you can edit the html side of the script any way you want, so if you are a wizard with html, then this will be no problem for you to make it look totally unique, yet keep the same functionality.

If you want you can also edit the <head> area <style> tags to point to an external style sheet - it is all basic html as I said. Originally I had an external stlye sheet involved in this hack, but I trimmed it down to avoid confusion and less CHMOD'ing, etc., but it can point to any style sheet on your server, just like any other html.

If anyone wants to be added to this thread as an auction demo site please let me know (PM me)! It would be a great way to increase traffic to your auctions and forum :)

I would love that as soon as we get it going :)

I checked your server and got it working (knock wood) PM'ed you the problems it seems you were having. They should be server-specific problems, so there is no need in going in to it here. I hope that it helps.

here's a tip for other folks: you may not need to run the auction.pl script in the cgi-bin folder if that is what is causing problems (some servers are strange about what you can/can't put in the cgi-bin folder as far as permissions). Some servers will also let you run a .pl or a .cgi script from any folder, so if you are STILL getting errors then try uploading the folder named 'auction' to your forum root directory, and then change your config area of the auction script accordingly. If that works better then change the file path in the template to point to that directory instead of your cgi-bin directory. In fact, that is how I originally wrote the instructions, but realized that some people who can't run perl scripts from any directory other than the cgi-bin and would be out of luck, so by default I decided to tell everyone to put it in the cgi-bin directory, but as I said that is not necessary in many cases.

Thanks,

I did just what you reccomended and I created an "auction" directory in the forum root... I just had to create the directory folders.... I am thinking that my server might be in safemode....

Anyhow, I am working on the style right now and I would love to have my site as a demo for this once I am done. I would also like to make a small donation towards this hack. This is great and I am sure it will make me money!!! PM me your paypal please and thank you for your level of service!! :)

I am glad you got it worked out! Your help with debugging the install problems that people are bound to encounter was very helpful, and I appreciate your help as well.

If you feel like donating then donate to your favorite charity, and thanks for the offer. :D I hope that the auction is a big bonus to your site, but there is no need for a contribution. I spent a lot of time on modifying the script because I like the script, I like what the author has done with releasing it to the GNU. I had a lot of revisions before I was happy with it - I guess it is always a work in progress), and in looking at it there are still some areas I would like to fix (mainly html issues, such as ugly <table border=1> issues), and I will update the file later when I have done that, but the functionality seems to be stable. ALso, as I said earlier if anyone else prettys it up html-wise then please feel free to post the auction.pl file to this thread. Playing with that script actually taught me alot about perl, so the time invested was my education, and I am happy to share the results.

Some of the best things come out of happy accidents. RichieBoy67 came up with a good answer to the iframe issue mentioned in the post: One way to avoid this issue is to add the same header and footer to your auction.pl (in the areas that they provide for that- just read the html) and style your <style> tags to be the same as your forum, and then just simply link people to your auction.pl file instead of your auction.php file. This way your header and fiiter will dynamically resize with your auction listings, and then your header can simply link them back to their forums! With that method you can avoid adding a new template and the auction.php file as well. You can even rename the auction.pl file to auction.cgi if you want, and it should still work, since they both refer to perl files. Or you can keep the template and the php file but make sure you do not add the header and footer info to both the template AND the auction.pl file, or you will have double headers and double footers!

I wish I could say that it was an idea I had and take credit but it was purely accidental.....lol It does take some serious editing though to do it this way but it's pretty easy.....

Great Hack.. One of the best I think..

I havn't installed -- but from what I have read....would be cool if there could be "auction feedback" for each user.

how hard would it be to make an addon so this uses the ucash/ushop addon, or points rather than real money?

Hmm, While I was reading the installation instructions I got very lost because it says make the chnages necessary in each php file but how do I know the changes that needs to be changed? I am somewhat of a newb to this.

Well you can use the trader feedback hack and just have the members enter the url of the auction

You can add the feedback addon that is available at the addon database if you want, but I left it off due to the fact that I felt that 2 different feedback ratings on my site would be confusing. The mod is there and it looks easy to add in - give it a try :D I also left off "buy it now features," but you can add those, or use eAuction or another version of this script that is mentioned in the first post, which already has some of those features built in.

There are only 2 files you need to edit: auction.pl, and admin.pl. The php file does not need to be edited. Open the files in a text editor and read the config area - it is well-documented.

Also use the info.cgi script that came with the file to determine things like the file path, as mentioned in previous posts.

After you get the script running you can add the categories you wnat, etc., but for now just try the base script with the default categories, and edit the settings below in the config area of the auction.pl script (the area at the top). These are the main settings you need to worry about in the config area- the rest have been deleted in the example below since they can be left at default to get your script up and running, so be sure to edit those as well. The settings below are only for EXAMPLE, and are not meant to be pasted in to your script, since they are already there!:
For the admin.pl script you can just simply enter the same settings you entered for the auction.pl script, or you can just cut and paste the entire config area from the auction.pl in to the admin.pl script, replacing the config area in that script (you don't want 2 config areas of any script!).

what's the average setup time?

It should only take a few minutes as long as you edit the config area of the auction.pl script, especially the areas noted in the post above.

After you do that you can test the functionality of the auction.pl script without even editing a vbulletin template by just going to the URL for your auction.pl file and checking it out before you go to the bother of editing your ACP index file, etc., to see if it is something you think would be useful, or will work on your server.

All you need to do to test the functionality of the script is edit the basepath url to match the full filepath on your server to that file, which is the top setting in the auction.pl config area.. the rest can be edited later after you get it running.

1 file edit and a CHMOD shouldn't take too long :D

QUICK & EASY 1-2-3 INSTRUCTIONS FOR INSTALLING & TESTING:

1) upload the contents of the cgi-bin folder in the file to your cgi-bin directory on your server, creating a subdirectory named 'auction,' and CHMOD that new directory to 755 along with the subdirectories, contents etc..

2) Go to your web browser and type in:and you should see a screen that lists all of your server variables. Go to the line that says: "SCRIPT_FILENAME" and note what it says. Look at the "SCRIPT_FILENAME" setting display and it will look something like: 3) just cut off the info.cgi from the end of the "SCRIPT_FILENAME" path you discovered in the previous step and that is your needed filepath. Just paste that info in here: in your auction.pl script and reupload it to your site's cgi-bin directory, making sure that it is CHMOD'ed to 755.

If you follow those steps correctly you should see the auction.pl script display properly at:If you get errors then recheck your file path and edits and CHMOD settings. If you still get errors then it is most likely a server issue, as long as you make sure you followed the above steps.

Once you have the script running you should edit the other areas of the config area, such as site name, etc., but that is all you need to worry about to test the auction.pl script on your site.

Something like this based on PHP and MySQL would be awsome :)

You can always use the EADB (EasyAuction DB) from everysoft, instead of the auction.pl script I provided. It is a MySQL version of EveryAuction, but I have not tested it myself.

There are other auction scripts for vBulletin, but they are all paid hacks, and are quite expensive. The idea behind this one was to have an easy setup and interface with vBulletin, without the cost, etc.. The perl script I provided is less than 100 kb, but it is powerful, and only displays a few kb at a time, depending on what you are calling up in the script, so it is not very server intensive or bandwidth hungry. Also, all known security holes have been plugged in the script I provided, and I am not sure the same is true for a stock install of EADB (or the commercial auction scripts for vbulletin). I am not implying that any of those are insecure - I just don't have any hands-on experience with them. Security is number one with me, especially when it comes to things like this. I have personally made sure that all known security holes are plugged (such as high bidders being able to see the personal info about sellers at an auction end, even if the reserve was not met, etc.. ), and will continue to develop the script in that direction as needed.

Can mods edit/delete certain auctions by members? and is the personal info easy to obtain if you are a regular member?

The auction is not tied in to vbulletin database in any way, so only the admin of the auction (anyone with the admin password defined in the script) or anyone with access to the cgi-bin directory via ftp account can see any personal info or delete any auctions. You can give the admin password to anyone you trust, I suppose. The auction and registration data are stored as text files, that are not encrypted, and they can easily be read or edited by an auction admin or anyone with access to your server, so make sure that your server is secure. If you move the auction directory outside of the cgi-bin directory then make sure it is in a secure place that requires login, such as your forum directory, and also place a blank index.html file in there so nobody can browse that directory from the outside (this is not necessary in the cgi-bin folder since all servers should block that ability). It is also a good security measure to change the name of the auction reg and data folders, and admin.pl script to another name - just change the reference to them in the config area so the script knows where to go and what to do where :D

I don't want to have any perl scripts on my website.. vB is written in PHP and I don't feel like I want to mix it up with some Perl script :)

Then feel free to buy a commercial script, or develop one of your own, or wait until a free one comes along here. This script is what it is, and I can't make it what it isn't.

But, before you make decisions like that you should ask youself why you feel that way. PHP is great for what it is, and so is plain old HTML, and so is perl. They all can do things well, and they all do things their own way, and they can all work well together.

I don't want this to turn in to a PERL-bashing thread, and I am not biased either way- they both work well at what they do. Both PHP and Perl (as applied to Web applications) are interpreted languages. Interpreted languages are not pre-compiled and executed in a binary format, rather, they are parsed by an interpreter on demand and compiled on-the-fly. Because of this, both Perl and PHP are very portable. Both languages can run on any platform that has an interpreter for the language (with subtle difference here and there).

Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) borrows features from C, shell scripting (sh), awk, sed, and many other programming languages, including HTML and javascript. Perl is a general-purpose programming language originally developed for text manipulation and now used for a wide range of tasks including system administration, web development, network programming, GUI development, and more. The language is intended to be practical, and its major features are that it's easy to use, supports both procedural and object-oriented programming, has powerful built-in support for text processing. Perl is not only a Web-scripting language, and looking at is as such only shows a microcosm of its true nature. Perl is, at its most basic level, a text-manipulation language. It provides powerful features that allow the user to easily do some operations that are very complex in C, and also complicates some other things that are easy in C! Perl, in conjunction with CPAN (the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) offer an enormous amount of "ready-made" modules, that allow code to be reused and shared- database interface modules, CORBA modules, scientific calculation modules, network programming modules, SGML/XML/HTML modules, and so much more. Obviously, because of Perl's powerful and easy text manipulation functions, it was quite natural for web developers to expand their toolbelt to include Perl. Perl can be embedded within HTML documents, run as an SSI (Server-Side Include), or run as its own application (CGI, or Common Gateway Interface). Perl, as applied to CGI and web application design, is designed for the programmer who wants to "output" webpages. A Perl Web application is nothing more or less than a backend program, that interacts with the browser using HTML. Perl's infinite extensibility and modular design make it incredibly popular among web application developers who want a single program (usually with a horde of included modules), or a couple programs, to be their application instead of the several hundred HTML pages (or vbulletin templates) that the same application might require if it was done in PHP.

PHP is an embedded scripting language. A PHP-aware webserver parses HTML documents looking for PHP code, processes it, and sends the results back to the browser. In effect, PHP separates web design from application design. PHP is developed with the web, and web development in mind.

Also- PHP It is not a general purpose language. While it has many facilities specifically catered towards web programming, it is not Perl (or C or C++ or Java). PHP probably cannot beat Perl in terms of convenient and efficient text crunching. Perl is designed with crunching text in mind and has facilities for handling strings and the like that put most other languages to shame. However, PHP does have adequate facilities for most web purposes.

PHP and Perl are both powerful languages that can make web application programming, automation, and dynamic content easy to work with. They are both powerful, wonderful languages, and I enjoy using them interchangeably.
Both Perl and PHP are crucial tools for the Web developer. A lot of the best Web-application developers I know pick one of the languages as their strong language, but keep in mind the other for those times when it just makes sense. I recommend learning them both. Don't get into the zeal wars, understand both languages and you'll see where I'm coming from. Both PHP and Perl are wonderful, extraordinary languages.

I am in my ftp right now but I dont see the cgi_bin in there. How can I get access to it?

look in your public_html folder (or equivalent) If you don't see one then you may not be able to run this script. Contact your server to see if they have cgi access available. If not, then try Perlsp, mentioned at the top of this thread.

I dont have a public_html folder either, all i have in the root is my forums folder so I guess ill have to contact my server.

Ok, I dont have a cgi folder and so I just read on my servers faq pages
"CGI-BIN

Dreamhost does not use a standard CGI-BIN, but rather allows you to place executable scripts anywhere within your account and achieve the same functionality. Simply create a directory somewhere within your account and put your scripts there, then use the 'pwd' command while within that directory to get its pathname. This is what you would use within your script's configuration when asked for a path to the CGI-BIN. "

Would this work?

It sounds as if you could just place the 'auction' directory right inside your forum directory and it should work, according to them. Just change the file path for the iframe in the template to point to the auction.pl file wherever you put it and it will work fine. Give it a shot and let me know :D