This is great - thanks very much for posting it. I think it's a good solution to a problem I'm facing, which is that I have to get a lot of different people, many of whom don't know a web site from a hole in the ground, much less MYSQL, to submit data. And one thing they DO understand is excel. But it's very nice not to have to do all that cutting and pasting. ++, you the man.

In an attempt to make this comment worthy of its own node, I'd like to pose the general question to all monks, whether they have any keen ideas how to let users interact with perl by using systems they're already familiar with. I guess the challenge is making it error-proof, because it's easy to ask someone to submit a tab-separated list, but harder to make sure he or she puts all the necessary tabs and no unnecessary tabs. Forcing users to use OUR choice of interface is great because it makes it error-proof, but it's not so nice for the user.

By the way, I have an ancient fax programme (maybe 1995) and when the fax is being sent it flips up a little picture of a fax machine. Which is funny. Because I remember when FAXES were the confusing weird technology that nobody understood, whereas now the fax is the comforting old-fashioned thing everyone's grown up with, which we use to help explain what's going on with all this bizarre modern computer stuff.

§ George Sherston