oops, I did all this manually, and code was still messed up.. here is the real code that html doesn't mess with...

#!/usr/bin/perl

#begins for loop of READCOUNTER so that it has to lock file before rea
+ding
READCOUNTER: for ($i=0; defined($i); $i++){

#opens counter data file
open(COUNTERDAT,"./counter.dat");

#locks file, and if can't, goes back to READCOUNTER to try again
flock COUNTERDAT, 1 or next READCOUNTER;

#puts first line of counter data file in first array (0) called counte
+rdat
while (<COUNTERDAT>){
push @counterdat, $_;
}

#closes counter data file
close COUNTERDAT;

#ends for loop of READCOUNTER
last READCOUNTER;
}

#sets previous number in counter.dat to one higher
$pnum = $counterdat[0];
$pnum++;

#begins loop of WRITECOUNTER so that it has to lock file before writin
+g
WRITECOUNTER: for ($i=0; defined($i); $i++){

#opens counter data file again
open(COUNTERDAT,">./counter.dat");

#locks file, and if can't, goes back to WRITECOUNTER
flock COUNTERDAT, 2 or next WRITECOUNTER;

#writes new number to counter data file
print COUNTERDAT "$pnum";

#closes counter data file
close COUNTERDAT;

#ends loop for WRITECOUNTER
last WRITECOUNTER;
}

#begins for loop of READCOUNTER2 so that it has to lock file before re
+ading
READCOUNTER2: for ($i=0; defined($i); $i++){

#opens counter data file
open(COUNTERDAT2,"./counter.dat");

#locks file, and if can't, goes back to READCOUNTER to try again
flock COUNTERDAT2, 1 or next READCOUNTER2;

#puts first line of counter data file in first array (0) called counte
+rdat2
while (<COUNTERDAT2>){
push @counterdat2, $_;
}

#closes counter data file
close COUNTERDAT;

#ends for loop of READCOUNTER2
last READCOUNTER2;
}

print<<HTMLEND;
content type; text/html

$counterdat2[0]
HTMLEND
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