There is no short answer to the issue of where the CGI script needs to go and how to reference it from the HTML form.

Usually this information is available from your web hosting provider.

If you are not using a web hosting provider in the vulgar sense, but using, say, some system at work, check with your system administrator for the following:

• Where the CGI directory is located
• How to get a CGI script into the CGI directory
• How to set permissions on the CGI script so it will execute when referenced by an HTML page
• What is the qualified path to that directory from the web site you are using (in other words, how do you specify the value for the ACTION parameter)

Good luck -- you are very close to getting stage one complete (reading the form).

If I am reading your intentions correctly, you will have new challenges to overcome for the part where you'd like to preserve the state for the next page hit -- but one thing at a time. :-)