mikkoh has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a mail script that takes input from a few forms, of which one has a checkbox-group. I'm in a situation where I need to write out the parameters in a single string, like so: 

foreach($q->param()){
    if(/^[\w\d]+/){
        $stuff .= $_;
        $stuff .= ":";
        $stuff .= $q->param("$_");
        $stuff .= "\n\n";
    }
}

[download]

The problem is with the checkboxes, only the first given value gets appended to the string. Like if the string was: 

list:foo,bar,foobar

[download]

the string is set to 

list:foo

[download]

I'm probably just missing something simple, but I've tried pretty much everything I know. I'd appreciate some comments..

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: A newbie's CGI- kinda problem
by httptech (Chaplain) on May 26, 2000 at 17:57 UTC
    If you want to dump all params in list context you could use something like: print map {"$_ : @{[$q->param($_)]}\n"} $q->param;
[reply]
[d/l]
Re: A newbie's CGI- kinda problem
by comatose (Monk) on May 26, 2000 at 17:27 UTC

    Checkboxes are returned as lists. In order to get the values of a group of checkboxes named "list", you'd need:

    @values = $q->param('list');

    [download]

    This is covered in the CGI.pm documentation.

[reply]
[d/l]
      Thanks, but one problem is that I don't want to name any specific param, as the script is supposed to blindly go through them all never mind what they are. Thanks anyway - problem solved :) //mjh
[reply]
Re: A newbie's CGI- kinda problem
by anders (Initiate) on May 26, 2000 at 17:59 UTC
    Hi,
    The CGI module returns the list on request, using wantarray to determine your wishes. See the CGI docs.
    just modify your code a bit:
    foreach($q->param()){
  if(/^\w\d+/){
    $stuff .= $_; $stuff .= ":";
    my @v;
    $stuff .= join ',', (@v = $q->param("$_"));
    $stuff .= "\n\n";
  }
}
    -anders
[reply]
      Thanks! Works like a charm. I knew it had to be something quite simple -- just need more caffeine.. X-) //mjh
[reply]
RE: A newbie's CGI- kinda problem
by agoth (Chaplain) on May 26, 2000 at 18:02 UTC
    print $q->Vars; takes care of it all for you
[reply]
      Hmm, looks like the Vars subroutine is not available in the version of CGI.pm that shipped with perl 5.00503 on my Linux box. Upon upgrading it I found it, but printing $q->Vars returns everything contencated into one long string with no spaces; not very useful. You'd have to call it in another context and do some interim processing to get it to spit out a neat, human readable list it looks like.
[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom