No need to go to CPAN for CGI.pm. It's been a part of the standard Perl distribution for many years.

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

"The first rule of Perl club is you don't talk about Perl club."

Thathom can at least look at the POD and then it makes him aware of where to find information about more modules that are there for using.

--BigJoe

Learn patience, you must.
Young PerlMonk, craves Not these things.
Use the source Luke.

This is a quick and untested example of how to use CGI in your script. There is alot more that it can do for you also.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use CGI;

my $q = new CGI;



#VARIABLES TO CHANGE
############################
$scriptfile = 'test.cgi';                     #Name of this script
$datafile   = 'testdata.dat';                 #Name of the file to sto
+re data to
$workdir    = 'http://myworld.server101.com'; #Default Working Dir

#OTHER VARIABLES
############################
$action     = $q->param('action');
$userid     = $q->param('userid');
$name1      = $q->param('name1');
$name2      = $q->param('name2');
$line       = $q->param('line');

#DECIDE ACTION TO TAKE
############################
if ($action eq '')          { &Show;}
if ($action eq 'show')      { &Show;}
if ($action eq 'add')       { &Add;}
if ($action eq 'addsave')   { &Addsave;}
if ($action eq 'change')    { &Change;}
if ($action eq 'changesave'){ &Changesave;}
if ($action eq 'insert')    { &Insert;}
if ($action eq 'insertsave'){ &Insertsave;}
if ($action eq 'delete')    { &Delete;}


#ADD - Create Form
############################
sub Add {
 print $q->header;
 print qq|
 <form action=$scriptfile>
<input type=hidden name=action value=addsave>
ForeName:<input type=text name=name1 size=20><br>
Surname :<input type=text name=name2 size=20><br>
<input type=submit value="Add Record">
</form>
|;
 exit;
}

#ADD - Save data to File
############################
sub Addsave {

 $newname  = join('¬', $name1, $name2);
 $newname .= "\n";

 open ("database", ">>$datafile") || &Printerror;
   print database $newname;
 close(database);

print "Location: $workdir/cgi/$scriptfile?action=show\n\n";
exit;
}

#CHANGE - Create Form
############################
sub Change {
 print $q->header;


 open ("database", "$datafile") || &Printerror;
   @database = <database>;
 close(database);

($name1, $name2) = split ('[¬]',@database[$line]);

$name2 =~ s/\n//g;

 print qq|
 <form action=$scriptfile>
<input type=hidden name=action value=changesave>
<input type=hidden name=line value=$line>
Forename:<input type=text name=name1 size=20 value=$name1><br>
Surname :<input type=text name=name2 size=20 value=$name2><br>
<input type=submit value="Change Record">
</form>
|;
 exit;
}

#CHANGE - Save changed data to File
###################################
sub Changesave {

$newname  = join('¬', $name1, $name2);
$newname .= "\n";

 open ("oldbase", "$datafile") || &Printerror;
  @oldbase = <oldbase>;
 close(oldbase);

 @oldbase[$line] = $newname;

 open ("newbase", ">$datafile") || &Printerror;
  print newbase @oldbase;
 close(newbase);

print "Location: $workdir/cgi/$scriptfile?action=show\n\n";
exit;
}

#INSERT - Create Form
############################
sub Insert {
 print $q->header;
 print qq|
 <form action=$scriptfile>
<input type=hidden name=action value=insertsave>
<input type=hidden name=line value=$line>
Forename:<input type=text name=name1 size=20><br>
Surname :<input type=text name=name2 size=20><br>
<input type=submit value="Insert Record">
</form>
|;
 exit;
}

#INSERT - Save inserted data to File
#####################################
sub Insertsave {

$newname  = join('¬', $name1, $name2);
$newname .= "\n";

 open ("oldbase", "$datafile") || &Printerror;
  @oldbase = <oldbase>;
 close(oldbase);

 $oldname        = @oldbase[$line];
 @oldbase[$line] = "$newname$oldname";

 open ("newbase", ">$datafile") || &Printerror;
  print newbase @oldbase;
 close(newbase);

print "Location: $workdir/cgi/$scriptfile?action=show\n\n";
exit;
}

#DELETE - delete record
###################################
sub Delete {

 open ("oldbase", "$datafile") || &Printerror;
  @oldbase = <oldbase>;
 close(oldbase);

 @oldbase[$line] = '';

 open ("newbase", ">$datafile") || &Printerror;
  print newbase @oldbase;
 close(newbase);

print "Location: $workdir/cgi/$scriptfile?action=show\n\n";
exit;
}

#SHOW - Create List of Records
##############################
sub Show {

 $line = "-1";
 print $q->header;
 open ("database","$datafile")|| &Printerror;
  @database = <database>;
 close(database);

 foreach (@database) {
   $line += 1;
   ($name1, $name2) = split ('[¬]',$_);
print qq|
 $line $name1 $name2 \|
 <a href=$scriptfile?action=change&line=$line>Edit</a> \|
 <a href=$scriptfile?action=delete&line=$line>Delete</a> \|
 <a href=$scriptfile?action=insert&line=$line>Insert</a><br>|;
 }
print qq|
<br>
<a href=$scriptfile?action=add>Add Record</a>
|;
exit;
[download]



--BigJoe

Learn patience, you must.
Young PerlMonk, craves Not these things.
Use the source Luke.

You need to use -w, strict and CGI.pm. All of these will make your scripts more robust.

Update: ajt is, of course, right. I don't know why I didn't add -T to my original list. Any CGI script that is not run in taint mode is just asking for trouble.

"The first rule of Perl club is you don't talk about Perl club."

I can't agree with my learned colleagues more, you should use strict; use CGI; and set the -w flag.

Another thing to do however, is to switch taint checks on and scrub your data clean (detaint). Your CGI-BIN is a gaping hole in your server's defences against the world, and if you put something in there, especially something that writes to the disk system, you sould make sure that you know what it's writing and where. You can't trust the users not to add something nasty inside a form.

Please read perlsec, to see why -T is a good idea. At best a inocent mistake could mess up your array, at worst they could format your hard disk....

use CGI;
[download]

Well, actually I couldn't think of it before I re-entered my mind after passing out, because you don't

use strict;
[download]

Regards...	Stefan
you begin bashing the string with a +42 regexp of confusion

Well, aside from using CGI three things: you should move the call to exit out of all the different subs and place it after your dispatch code (repeated code is bad); you're not locking the database file (perldoc -f flock); and your dispatch code might be a little cleaner this way:

my %actions = (
               Add    => \&Add,
               Delete => \&Delete,
               Show   => \&Show,
               ...
              );

if( length( $action ) ) {
  $actions{ $action }->( );
} else {
  Show();
}

exit 0;
[download]

That way you just have to maintain the dispatch table in the %actions hash rather than having n different if statements (repeated code bad, again :).