Thanks,
When I move the print header(); outside of the loop I loose all the HTML formatting. I just get the data from the text file. Is there a particular way to do this?
Cal

In your original code, you have one long print statement. When you moved the print header() outside of the loop, did you forget to leave a print statement inside the loop? You may want to move the start_html() out of the loop, as well. Some other thoughts:
• As your code is right now, it looks like you'll get each line in a separate table. Is that What You Want?
• Your code might look better if you were to use CGI.pm's table functions (table, td, Tr, etc.), which you already have imported by using :standard. I refer to Lincoln Stein's Official Guide to Programming wth CGI.pm. I'm sure there are online resources for this; I've just never looked.
HTH

--

There are 10 kinds of people -- those that understand binary, and those that don't.

But normally the content type is at the top of the page. Does any one know how to do that?

Place your print header before anything else, and make sure it isn't in a loop unless you have some way of surpressing multiple calls...

print header;
while ( <FILE> ) {
    # ... 
}
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while ( <FILE> ) { 
    # ...
  print header unless $already_printed_header++;
    # ...
}
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However, in more recent versions of CGI, the functionality of the latter is actually built in for you, but needs to be enabled by supplying the -unique_headers argument to your use CGI...

use CGI qw/ -unique_headers /;

while ( <FILE> ) { 
    # ...
  print header;
    # ...
}
[download]

    --k.

We speak the way we breathe. --Fugazi

Lincoln has a CGI.pm manual online. But if you can, grab a copy of Official Guide to Programming wth CGI.pm. It's invaluable as a desktop reference.

As mephit noted, you're already importing all of the standard CGI.pm functions by using use CGI qw(:standard). Since you may as well use what's already imported, below is a sample of what your program can look like with using CGI.pm.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use CGI qw/ :standard *table /;
use CGI::Pretty; # not necessary, but it makes for more legible html o
+utput


my $db ="test.txt";

# moved header and start_html outside of loop
# print takes a list, so you can join several items to print with comm
+as

print
    header,
    start_html( -title => 'Script' ),
    hr,
    start_table( { -width => '100%', -border => '0' } );


# It's more helpful to include $! in the error

open( FILE, "<$db" ) or die "Well, whats up.. can't open file $!\n";


while ( <FILE> ) {

    # no need to define $line here -- $_ is already defined, so you ca
+n use it 
    # directly

    chomp;

    # Just a preference note.  When working with arrays, I prefer to u
+se
    # something a little easier to maintain, like:
    # my ( $name, $date, $something, $somethingelse ) = split/::/;
    # it's a bit easier than trying to remember the order of the field
+s in $db

    my @events = split/::/;

    print
        Tr(
            td( { -width => '22%' },
                font( { -size => '+1', color => 'gray' },
                    b(
                        "$events[0] $events[1], $events[2]"
                    )
                )
            ),
            td( { -width => '78%' },
                font( { -size => '+1', color => 'black' },
                    $events[3]
                )
            )
        ),
        Tr(
            td( { -colspan => '2'},
                font( { -size => '2' },
                    $events[4]
                )
            )
        );
}

print end_table, end_html;

close FILE or die "Can't close $!\n";
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Before you spend too much time hard-coding HTML in your program, I would strongly urge you to use the HTML::Template module. You would still use CGI.pm, of course, since that would handle all of the CGI-specific stuff, but virtually all of your HTML would go into external template files, which you (or a non-Perl web person) could easily modify with having to munge up your Perl code.

A simple template file might be:

<html>
<head>    
<title><!-- TMPL_VAR NAME='TITLE' --></title>
</head>
<body>
<h1><!-- TMPL_VAR NAME='HEADING' --></h1>
<ul>
    <TMPL_LOOP NAME='LISTOFSTUFF'>
    <li><TMPL_VAR NAME='SOMETEXT'></li>
    </TMPL_LOOP>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
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You would then just have your Perl program supply the values of the variables. (The HTML::Template docs would supply the details. It's really very easy.) Separating your Perl code from your HTML code will save you LOTS of grief in the future.