Which code would that be? I think I posted the code that produces the %09. The only thing I didn't include was the part of the code that creates the html form with default values from the DBM file, but that part is just opening the DBM, reading the values into variables, and setting the default values of the html form to these variables. I open the database and read in as follows:

dbmopen(%synusers,"synusers",0666) || die "Can't open synusers DBM fil
+e\n";
    #search database entries
    while (($key, $value) = each(%synusers)){
        if (index($key,$fields{'alumnamelogin'})!=-1){
             ($alumemail, $emailpub, $alumsnail1, $snail1pub, $alumsna
+il2, $snail2pub, $alumsnail3, $snail3pub, 
            $phone, $phonepub, $alumyears, $yearspub, $comment, $comme
+ntpub, $synpass, $synpass2)=split(/::/,$value);
[download]

Edit by dws for <code> tags</code>

And I do the html defaults, for example, like this:
Email: input type=text name=updalumemail value=$alumemail size=50 color=#ffffff>

for some reason, this message board isn't letting me post that less than symbol there...anyway, u get the idea