I've hit a snag regarding the stateless nature of http in my latest project.
Maybe someone has been here before me and can advise a workaround.

After installing the Apache web server on my HP3000, I took Lars Appel's
Cobol CGI example from Jazz and produced a Cobol CGI program that accepts
some search criteria from an html page and does an Omnidex lookup on an
Image database and reports the number qualified entries back to the web
page.

Now I would like to have the user drill down into the qualified records but
this would require some additional conversation between the browser and my
CGI program. Of course, the http connection has dutifully terminated -
stateless http.

A possible solution
-------------------
I've seen a technique where the CGI program sends the user's initial
criteria back to the browser in a hidden html field which can be combined
with additional criteria for the next lookup but each lookup will start the
CGI program from scratch. I'll still accomplish the drill-down but at the
expense of some efficiency.

Any ideas on how to keep the connection alive between a Cobol CGI and a
browser? I understand that the next generation of http (HTTP-NG) will keep a
session id and thus bestow "state".

--
Brad Feazell