After I replace the 'localhost' stuff with my real userid and password, I do indeed get

bash-2.04$ perl -w gmaxfoo.cgi 
'joe' 'secret'
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from your example. Thanks.

Because time is wasting, I have to press ahead without the quote call and figure that out later. Bloody frustrating.

--t. alex

"Nyahhh (munch, munch) What's up, Doc?" --Bugs Bunny

Update Because I'm like a dog with a bone when I come up against this kind of problem, I tackled it with renewed vigour and discovered that this

my $UserID   = $hDB->quote ( $Vars->{ userid } || "foo" );
my $Password = $hDB->quote ( $Vars->{ password } || "bar" );
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made everything come out all right. I don't know why, but for some reason the values in the hash ref were being shy. I must be doing something wrong in my code for it to behave this way, I just haven't figured out what just yet.

Thanks again for your help.