I also am confounded that I cannot seem to break out from the print command in after I start the table but before creating cells.

What an unusual thing to want to do! :P

No seriously, the reason you can't stop printing etc, without printing data etc, is that when you call table() the table is closed where that close parentheses is. You can't leave the parentheses hanging open because that is a syntax error. So you can do this:

    print table();
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but obviously not this:

    print table(;
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So, how do you get a start table, and an end table that allows you to create data between (with a foreach loop for example)? Glad you asked... What you have to do is this:

use CGI qw/:standard start_table end_table/;
                 # actually you can do:
                 # use CGI qw/:standard *table/; too I think.

print start_table;

        # make some table data 

print end_table;
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It's the same to get start_Tr, and any similar stuff. pjf's node links to the course notes that we use to teach CGI courses, feel free to use these if it helps.