To encode data in a URL, you can call CGI::escapeHTML() directly.

URL escaping is different from HTML escaping. I think the OP needs a module like URI::Escape. Observe the following code:

$ perl
use CGI;
use URI::Escape;

my $orig = q{a9: _-;&<tag>'"};
printf "HTML escaped: %s\n", CGI->escapeHTML($orig);
printf "URL escaped:  %s\n", uri_escape($orig);
^D
HTML escaped: a9: _-;&amp;&lt;tag&gt;'&quot;
URL escaped:  a9%3A%20_-%3B%26%3Ctag%3E'%22
[download]

Most mainstream browser can recover from common broken (unescaped) urls - space seem to be the most common. But rfc2396 is clear in this regard:

2.4.3. Excluded US-ASCII Characters

   Although they are disallowed within the URI syntax, we include here
+ a
   description of those US-ASCII characters that have been excluded an
+d
   the reasons for their exclusion.

   <SNIP>

   The space character is excluded because significant spaces may
   disappear and insignificant spaces may be introduced when URI are
   transcribed or typeset or subjected to the treatment of word-
   processing programs.  Whitespace is also used to delimit URI in man
+y
   contexts.

   space       = <US-ASCII coded character 20 hexadecimal>

   <SNIP>

   Data corresponding to excluded characters must be escaped in order 
+to
   be properly represented within a URI.
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Named entities (like those generated by escapeHTML) are simply names for characters and do not represent URL escaping.

Test HTML snippet:

<a href="http://google.com/search?q=super search">unescaped space</a>
<a href="http://google.com/search?q=super%20search">escaped space</a>
<a href="http://google.com/search?q=super&amp;search">entity amp</a>
<a href="http://google.com/search?q=super%26search">url-escaped amp</a
+>
[download]

Attn. OP: Passing SQL statements this way is a security hole.

You can use hidden fields, but that only hides things; it makes it only a little bit more difficult for a mischief maker to do bad things. A better solution is to encode the database query logic in a module or run state somewhere in the code, where users can't access it and you're not sending it to the client and trusting it to come back safely. CGI::Application is one good approach.

Thanks chromatic! Youve been a big help. I think I have to do more reading regarding this CGI::Application. Anyway thanks so much for the help.