One obvious improvement would be to actually simulate the deck of cards. As your program stands you can deal a hand with five 2s

I would suggest using a closure to hold a pack

# Limit the region where the variable @pack is visible
{
    my(@pack);

sub new_pack
  {
    my(@sorted_pack);
    foreach my $suit ("S","H","D","C")
      {
        foreach $val (0..10,"J","Q","K","A")
          {
            push(@sorted_pack,$val.$suit);
          }
      }
    # This way of shuffling a pack is untested, 
    # inefficient and probably flawed
    @pack = ();
    while($#sorted_pack > 0)
      {
        my($idx);
        $idx = rand $#sorted_pack;
        push(@pack,splice(@sorted_pack,$idx,1));
      }
  }

sub next_card
  {
    new_pack() if(!@pack);
    return pop(@pack);
  }
}
# NB: None of this code is tested
[download]

Good idea. Adding suites was something I was going to do after I got it working on my web page. And now I have some decent code to go off of. Thanx...

well the problem is I get a server error when I try to load the page. As you can probably tell from my post and the code alone that this is not a command line script. All I get is an Internal Server Error.

hmmm - no syntax errors, and if I run it commandline it outputs html.
If I run it in my appache it works ... well I get told I lose all the time :s


• Are you really sure the web server configuration is in working order ?
  • Web server understands perl ?
  • Web server has appropriate permissions ?
  • Server has uptodate modules installed ?
• Did you check the error log for detailed die messages etc. ?
• Is cgi enabled for the directory where the script is ?
1) CGI.pm can also be invoked with commandline args instead of

There really should be a CGI/webserver check-list on perlmonks
--
Jaap Karssenberg || Pardus (Larus)? <pardus@cpan.org>
>>>> Zoidberg: So many memories, so many strange fluids gushing out of patients' bodies.... <<<<