Perhaps this code will help:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# ic_cookies - sample CGI script that uses a cookie
use CGI qw(:standard);

use strict;

my $cookname = "favorite ice cream";
my $favorite = param("flavor");
my $tasty    = cookie($cookname) || 'mint';

unless ($favorite) {
    print header(), start_html("Ice Cookies"), h1("Hello Ice Cream"),
          hr(), start_form(),
            p("Please select a flavor: ", textfield("flavor",$tasty)),
              end_form(), hr();
    exit;
}

my $cookie = cookie(
                -NAME    => $cookname,
                -VALUE   => $favorite,
                -EXPIRES => "+2y",
            );

print header(-COOKIE => $cookie),
      start_html("Ice Cookies, #2"),
      h1("Hello Ice Cream"),
      p("You chose as your favorite flavor `$favorite'.");
[download]

This comes from Recipe 19.10 in the Perl Cookbook.

Discussion

The cookie was prepared with:

my $cookie = cookie(
                -NAME    => $cookname,
                -VALUE   => $favorite,
                -EXPIRES => "+2y",
            );
[download]

And the cookie was set with:

print header(-COOKIE => $cookie),
      start_html("Ice Cookies, #2"),
      h1("Hello Ice Cream"),
      p("You chose as your favorite flavor `$favorite'.");
[download]

I hope this helps.

UPDATE: Oh Boy! I missed the boat on this one. Please ignore this message!!

J. J. Horner
Linux, Perl, Apache, Stronghold, Unix
jhorner@knoxlug.org http://www.knoxlug.org/