Multiple people have already given you your answer, but nobody has actually told you how to use CGI. So here is a brief example of how you accept CGI input: use strict; Not really needed, but a good idea. See strict.pm for details. use CGI qw/:standard/; Loads CGI and imports most of the functions you are likely to want. The only one I am going to show you is param(). my @parameter_list = param(); With no arguments it hands you back a list of all parameter names you were called with. my $text = param('textbox_name'); As for a single parameter in scalar context, and it gives you back that parameter. If there were multiple entries, it gives you just one. my @selection = param('select_list_name'); Ask for a single parameter in list context, and it gives you back all of the entries with that name. If you are not familiar with the difference between list and scalar context, then I would suggest calling the following function in various places to see when you have list and scalar context:

sub show_context {
  if (wantarray()) {
    print "List context\n";
  }
  elsif (defined(wantarray())) {
    print "Scalar context\n";
  }
  else {
    print "Boolean (scalar) context\n";
  }
}
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(It is explained in perlsyn, but a little trial and error generally helps to figure it out.)