first of all, I don't think that you did write this script, because if you did, you'd know that this is a silly thing to ask, and your program already GETs the page.

second this is a very poor programmed script: you use CGI and then go on and parse the parameters manually (not mentioning that it is also done wrong).... and since you're importing LWPs try LWP::Simple with this snippet at the top:

use CGI qw/:standard/;
use LWP::Simple;

my $title = param('title');

my $url = "http://www.bookplace.co.uk/bookplace/results.asp?SEARCH_FIE
+LD=KEYWORD&TAG=BHSLFX8X99X97X163DLT9W&CID=&SEARCH_TEXT=$title&FORM_OB
+=%24RANK&x=23&y=14"; 

my $content = get($url);
[download]

I'm very confused. You are already using a GET request. This script has a combination of some very experienced code (detailed use of modules) and some very hacked in code (incorrectly parsing form data, print a 'text/html' header and then printing plain text, poor scoping on variables, poor regular expressions, etc.). I did a quick (and incomplete) cleanup on the code, but I don't really think I'm going to comment on it. Something here is a bit odd. Are you maintaining someone else's code? What gives?

#!usr/local/bin/perl
use CGI qw/:standard/;
use HTML::Parse;
use HTML::FormatText;
use strict;             #turn on more error checking
use LWP::Simple;
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser set_message);
BEGIN {
    sub handle_errors {
        my $msg = shift;
         print "Oh Gosh!!";
         print "Got an error: $msg";
    }
    set_message(\&handle_errors);
}

#GLOBAL VARIABLES
my ( @book, @pairs );              #array storing all books

#variables storing information on a single book
my ( $book, $price,  $format,     $publisher, $pub_date, $req,
     $isbn, $buffer, $titleValue, $name,      $value,    $title );
#END OF GLOBAL VARIABLES

#$title = param( 'title' );
my $title = 'Java'; # remove after testing

my $url = "http://www.bookplace.co.uk/bookplace/results.asp?SEARCH_FIE
+LD=KEYWORD".
          "&TAG=BHSLFX8X99X97X163DLT9W&CID=&SEARCH_TEXT=$title&FORM_OB
+=%24RANK&x=23&y=14";
my @content = split("\n", get( $url ));

my $start = 0;

foreach (@content)
{
    if(/<!-- Main Text Table -->/)
    {
        $start++;
    }
    if($start > 0)
    {
        s/\ / /g;
        my $foo = HTML::FormatText->new->format(parse_html($_));
        if($foo !~ /^\s+$/)
        {
            if($foo !~ /IMAGE/)
            {
                if($foo !~ /TABLE NOT SHOWN/)
                {
                    push(@book, $foo);
                }
            }
        }
        if(/Pub\. Date/)
        {
            $start = 0;
        }
    }
}

my @Lines;

foreach $book ( @book )
{

    if ( ( $book =~ m/This title has a full description. Click the Tit
+le to view the details./ )||
         ( $book =~ m/Add this item to your basket. You can buy the co
+ntents of your basket at any time by pressing 'Checkout' above./ ) )
    {
        next;
    }
    push ( @Lines, $book );
}

my $counter = 0;
my $i = 0;
my @eachBook;

foreach my $var ( @Lines )
{

    @eachBook->[$i][$counter] = $var;
    $counter++;

    if ( $var =~ m/---------------------------------------------------
+------------------/ )
    {
        $i++;
        $counter = 0;
    }
}

print header,
      start_html( -title -> 'WTF' );

for my $i ( 0 .. $#eachBook)
{
    for my $k ( 0 .. $#eachBook )
    {
        print p( @eachBook->[$i][$k] );
    }
}
print end_html;
[download]

Cheers,
Ovid

Join the Perlmonks Setiathome Group or just click on the the link and check out our stats.