Found an interesting bit in perldoc CGI:

       SAVING THE STATE OF THE SCRIPT TO A FILE:


           $query->save(FILEHANDLE)

       This will write the current state of the form to the
       provided filehandle.  You can read it back in by providing
       a filehandle to the new() method.  Note that the
       filehandle can be a file, a pipe, or whatever!

       The format of the saved file is:

               NAME1=VALUE1
               NAME1=VALUE1'
               NAME2=VALUE2
               NAME3=VALUE3
               =

       Both name and value are URL escaped.  Multi-valued CGI
       parameters are represented as repeated names.  A session
       record is delimited by a single = symbol.  You can write
       out multiple records and read them back in with several
       calls to new.  You can do this across several sessions by
       opening the file in append mode, allowing you to create
       primitive guest books, or to keep a history of users'
       queries.  Here's a short example of creating multiple
       session records:

          use CGI;

          open (OUT,">>test.out") || die;
          $records = 5;
          foreach (0..$records) {
              my $q = new CGI;
              $q->param(-name=>'counter',-value=>$_);
              $q->save(OUT);
          }
          close OUT;

          # reopen for reading
          open (IN,"test.out") || die;
          while (!eof(IN)) {
              my $q = new CGI(IN);
              print $q->param('counter'),"\n";
          }

       The file format used for save/restore is identical to that
       used by the Whitehead Genome Center's data exchange format
       "Boulderio", and can be manipulated and even databased
       using Boulderio utilities.  See
         http://www.genome.wi.mit.edu/genome_software/other/boulder.ht
+ml

       for further details.
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Sorry for the long post...thought it could help : )

-- I'm a solipsist, and so is everyone else. (think about it)