ask me about perl, i dare you $_=param('nameoffile'); tr/a-z//cd; print ">$_"; if (!(open (OUT, ">$_"))) { print "Error opening file $_ for writing."; exit 0; } had a think it could be stuffing up because you have not imported param in the name space of your script if not you will have to fully qualify it ie $var = $query->param('nameoffile');