No way, never do anything like that (i mean, tracking users by IP)! You cannot track users by IP because there can be several users from a same IP (proxy-firewall) or a single user using a different IP for every request (when he got multiple proxies he can use in a round-robin fashion)
Cookie is the right way to go. I'm pretty sure you don't call your CGI function correctly, so your code produces messed up cookie string. Some code from your program would help to help you.
$|=$_='1g2i1u1l2i4e2n0k',map{print"\7",chop;select$,,$,,$,,$_/7}m{..}g | [reply] |