Hello monks, I have a script that queries the database and writes the information the an excel file. The issue is that I want to take a date at the command line when the script is run and write it to an entire excel column. When I run it, it gives me '211' just on the first cell in the column (D) that I want, and not the full date(ie. 20130729) through the whole column. I am running it like  perl script.pl 20130729
Here is most of my script:

use strict;
use warnings;
use diagnostics;
use DBI;
use DateTime;
use Date::Format;
use MIME::Entity;
use Spreadsheet::ParseExcel;
use Spreadsheet::WriteExcel;

my $user_date = $ARGV[0];
my $database = "workflow";
my $host     = "database.local";
my $user     = "$user";
my $pw       = "$pw";
my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:mysql:$database:$host", $user, $pw,) or di
+e "Database connection FAILED: $DBI::errstr";

my $sth = $dbh->prepare( "SELECT * stuff");
$sth->execute();

my $xWB = Spreadsheet::WriteExcel->new('/path/to/file.xls');
my $xWS = $xWB->add_worksheet('sheet');
$xWS->write(0,0, 'Account');
$xWS->write(0,1, 'PDF Name');
$xWS->write(0,2,'Bill Number');
$xWS->write(0,3, 'Mailed Date');

$xWS->set_column('A:A', 18);
$xWS->set_column('B:B', 25);
$xWS->set_column('C:C', 12);
$xWS->set_column('D:D', 12);
while (my $ar = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref) {
    s{^.*/}{} for @$ar;
    ++$row, $col = 0;
        $xWS->write($row,$col++,$_) for @$ar;

}
#I want the total number of rows and write the user input date through
+ all rows in this column

#$xWS->write("D2:D$row", $user_date);

# 212 is the actual number of rows known by viewing the file
$xWS->write('D2:D212', $user_date);




$xWB->close();
$sth->finish();
$dbh->disconnect;
[download]

I also want to automatically get the total number of rows and write the user input date to all of column D, but I can get to that later. For now I need help understanding why the date is not writing. Any help is very appreciated !