A sample piece of code from a CGI::Application run-mode subroutine which makes use of this method to set a cookie might look like this:

sub user_login {
    my $self = shift;
    my $cgi = $self->query;
    my $xml = $self->param('xml');
    $self->header_props( -uri => '/' );
    if ((defined $cgi->param('username')) && (defined $cgi->param('pas
+sword'))) {
        my @user = grep { $_->{'username'} eq $cgi->param('username') 
+} @{%{$xml}->{'user'}};
        if (scalar @user) {
            my $user = shift @user;
            if ($user->{password} eq md5_hex($cgi->param('password')))
+ {
                $self->header_props(
                    -cookie  =>  $cgi->cookie(
                        -expires =>  '+1y',
                        -name    =>  'cowsnet-auth',
                        -path    =>  '/',
                        -value   =>  \%{$user}
                    ),
                    -uri    =>  '/'
                );
            }
        }
    };
    $self->header_type('redirect');
}
[download]

In this code the Set-Cookie header is set through the -cookie argument which is passed onto CGI - Additionally a Location header is set the header_type is set to redirect the user to the URL specified in the Location header.

In addition to the CGI::Application documentation, you might want to look at the module review on this module here.

perl -e 's&&rob@cowsnet.com.au&&&split/[@.]/&&s&.com.&_&&&print'

sub Login
{
    # Local variables
    my $self = shift;
    my $cgi = $self->query();
    my $permissions = "";
    my $template;
	
    # Check the database for the username and password
    my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:$databaseName", $dbUser, $dbPass) or die "Could not connect to database: " . DBI->errstr;
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare('SELECT Users.permissions FROM Users WHERE username=? AND password=?');
    $sth->execute($cgi->param('username'), $cgi->param('password')) or die DBI->errstr;
	
    # see if the user was in the database
    if (my @permissions = $sth->fetchrow_array)
    {
        # They have a valid login. Get the template
        $template = $self->load_tmpl("loginVALID.html");
		
        # Make a cookie
        my $cookie = $cgi->cookie(-name => 'browserID',
                                  -value => '55',
                                  -expires => '+30m',
                                  -domain => 'dshack.com');
							  
	# Give the cookie to the browser		
        $self->header_props(-cookie => $cookie);								  
	# Set the redirect
        $template->param('redirect',cgi->param("redirect"));
    }
    else
    {
	# they do not have a valid login
	$template = $self->load_tmpl("login.html");

        # Display the Bad username and password warning	
        $template->param('INVALID', '1');
    }

    return $template->output;	
}

Hey cool, thanks both for your examples. Funnily enuff, both examples are pretty damn close to what i'm doing (ie authentication).

It's all sorted now and the page in question looks a whole lot cleaner.. ;-). I'm off to read some more documentation...