The problem is probably that your script dies due to the typo here when you call a function on an undefined value

print my $cgi->escapeHTML( $tags); # should be $query not $cgi
print $query->escapeHTML( $tags );
[download]

Your CGI object is called $query not $cgi. Checking the error logs would have revealed this and avoided your frustration.... The script compiles OK because this is a runtime error.

If this fails then check what the script is actually getting from your form:

use CGI;

my $query = CGI->new;

print $query->header;

%form = $query->Vars;

use Data::Dumper;
print $query->escapeHTML(Dumper(\%form));
[download]

If that is not usefull see the CGI Help Guide I wrote.

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

Ok, you were right, that is what the problem was. I didn't know print $cgi was deaing with print $query, never would have guessed that.

I have another problem. The script runs fine. In the browser it prints as per you'd expect, but in the email it prints something like:



<meta name="author" content="Aaron"><br>
<meta name="keywords" content="Apples"><br>
[download]

It literally prints <br> in the email. Do you know of a way I can make it print to broswer one tag per line but somehow only print the tags in the email?

Thanks so much!

sulfericacid

Sure just use a s/// regex to remove the <br> tags.

my $text =<<TEXT;
foo<br>
bar<br>
baz<br>
TEXT

print $text; # to browser

$text =~ s/<br>//g;

print $text; # to email
[download]

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

my $tags ='';
if ($form{'abstract'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="abstract" content="$form{'abstract'}"><br
+>\n);
}
if ($form{'author'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="author" content="$form{'author'}"><br>\n)
+;
}
if ($form{'distributor'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="distributor" content="$form{'distributor'
+}"><br>\n);
}
if ($form{'copyright'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="copyright" content="$form{'copyright'}"><
+br>\n);
}
if ($form{'keywords'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="keywords" content="$form{'keywords'}"><br
+>\n);
}
if ($form{'description'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="description" content="$form{'description'
+}"><br>\n);
}

$tags .=  qq(<meta name="generator" content="SpyderTagV1.0!"><br>\n);

if ($form{'robots'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="robots" content="$form{'robots'}"><br>\n)
+;
}
if ($form{'language'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="language" content="$form{'language'}"><br
+>\n);
}
if ($form{'distribution'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="distribution" content="$form{'distributio
+n'}"><br>\n);
}
if ($form{'rating'} ne "") {
    $tags .=  qq(<meta name="rating" content="$form{'rating'}"><br>\n)
+;
}

print my $cgi->escapeHTML( $tags);
[download]

print my $cgi->escapeHTML(
  join '', ( 
    map{
      defined($form{$_}) ? qq(<meta name="$_" content="$form{$_}"><br>
+\n):''
    } qw ( abstract author distributor copyright description 
           robots language distribution rating )         
  ),'<meta name="generator" content="SpyderTagV1.0!"><br>\n'
);
[download]

Explanation This uses the functional programming idiom, so start from the inner-most loop and work back.

• Use the qw function to produce an array of string items for everything in brackets. In this case a list of all the names of the elements from the %form hash
• Use the map function to process each element of the array produced by 'qw'. Map makes a list of all the results in order.
• Using a ternary operator to return a value: the string if the form item is defined, no text if not.
• Join all the array elements from the 'map' function. Also join the string outside the brackets for the map function.
• Finally print the escapeHTML'd version of the returned string from the join.

• Use single quotes where possible, ie where variables don't need to be interpolated.

One of the first things I learnt in Perl was to recognise repetitive patterns and then get rid of them.
I'm lazy.
A by product is if you want to add more meta fields it's easier now :)

--

Brother Frankus.

¤

In addition to tachyon, who found the problem (++),a note on diagnostics for the future:

Put 'use strict;' and 'use warnings;' somewhere in the first few lines of your code. Then run your script on the commandline, CGI.pm allows you to specify CGI parameters as commandline options. This way, you're able to use the debugger.

That method would have alerted you this error. However, if something works on the commandline but not via CGI, see you server's errorlog and consider using CGI::Carp.

I am using strict actually, I just didn't post the top part of my script. I am also using -w :) and it still never showed anything, which is really odd.

Thanks

sulfericacid

Then have a look into the error log og your server.

--
http://fruiture.de