AM,

I am not entirely sure what it is you are doing, but it looks like you are using CGI.

If so try something like this..

use strict;
use diagnostics;
use CGI;

#Create an instance of the object
my $CGI_object = new CGI;

# Set a new varible for easier manipulation.
my $HOME = undef; 
  $HOME = $CGI_object->param('home');

# if $HOME is not defined ==[ (!($HOME)) ]== OR ==[ || ]==
# if $HOME is not a directory ==[ (!($HOME)) ] ==, then 
# do the inerror thing.
  if( (!($HOME)) || (!(-d $HOME)) )
  {
    &inerror("We couldn't find '$HOME' in the path.");
  }
[download]

If that is not what you are trying to do, then please ignore this post.
Hope this helps.
Kristofer