Rexx - Web Programming

Rexx has the facility to work with web servers as well. The most common being the apache web server. In order to use Rexxw with the Apache web server, you need to first download the Rexx modules from the following link − https://sourceforge.net/projects/modrexx/?source=typ_redirect
Once done, make sure to add the mod Rexx modules to the class path.

The following lines need to be added and modified to the Apache configuration file.
The following lines need to be added to the end of the appropriate −

• httpd.conf LoadModule list.
• LoadModule rexx_module modules/mod_rexx.dll

The following lines should be added at the end of the http.conf file.

• AddType application/x-httpd-rexx-script .rex .rexx
• AddType application/x-httpd-rexx-rsp .rsp
• Add these for REXX Server Page support
• RexxRspCompiler “c:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache2/bin/rspcomp.rex”

Once the above changes have been made, you need to shut down and restart your apache web server.
The above lines also allow you to have Rexx based server pages just like Java server pages. You can add the Rexx code directly to the html pages.
An example is shown below −

<p>The current date and time is 
   <?rexx 
      /* Inserting the rexx statement */ 
      say date() time() 
   ?>
</p>

When a Rexx based server page is run, the following things are carried out −

• First a temporary file is created.
• Then the Rexx Server compiler compiles the file into a Rexx program and places it in the temporary file.
• The next step is to actually run the Rexx program.

Finally, the temporary file is removed.