$another_insane_idea warning on$

Okay, I have a somewhat strange thought about making Apache
work with non-CGI native code (like COBOL or other compiled
languages)...

Can mod_perl or mod_php be used to call native code procedures,
eg from a user supplied NMXL, or would this require to write
my own Apache module, say mod_mgi (for mpe gateway interface)?

I would not want to plug my "legacy" code into the httpd program,
but run it in a separate "application server job" and just add
some code to Apache that allows me to pass request data into my
"application server" and return results back to the browser. Just
like mod_jserv does it with the Java Servlet engine or mod_fastcgi
does it with the FastCGI server process(es). Only that this would
be an "mpe-ish" interface, eg using MSG files or User Mapped Files
or AIF Ports for the (local) communication between httpd and my
"application server" process(es)...

I suspect that the Apache module API is not for "beginners" like
me, so my thought is "if mod_perl or mod_php can call NMXL code,
it might be easier to have them parse out the http request data
and then call a subroutine to trigger my 'legacy' processing"...

Any ideas on this insane thought? Any volunteers to hack it? ;-)

Lars "trying to avoid the CGI disadvantages"

PS: One reason why I would not want httpd to include my application
code... As soon as I do the first DBOPEN, the httpd won't be able
to fork() CGI children any more (as TurboIMAGE buffers and control
structures would probably not be happy to be "duplicated").