Would something like this help?

my $whatever = param("WHATEVER"); # title, handle, whatever
if ($whatever =~ /[^a-zA-Z0-9_ /) {
  handle_failure("Sorry, but that contains unsupported characters.");
}
[download]

Just letters, underlines and spaces. No fuss, no screwups.

edited by footpad, ~Sat Feb 2 06:14:52 2002 (GMT): Fixed obvious syntax problems.