#print "Content-type:text/html\n\n";

Why did you comment out the content type?

since your using CGI.pm's :standard the easier way to print the headers is like this:

print header();
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to print the body tags and any CCS, Javascripts and stuff, use the start_html clause:

print start_html(-bgcolor=>"#FFFFFF",
-text=>"#000000",
-style=>{code=>$somecode},
-script=>{code=>$Somejscript});
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And how I test for rows is like this:

    my ($sth, $row);
    $dbh = <useyourconnection>;
    $sth = $dbh->prepare (qq{ SELECT * FROM mytable });
    $sth->execute();
    while ($row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref()) {
        # these are the rows that do exists do
        # what you want with those rows.
    }
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If you only want to check for ONE record you can do it like this:

    $sth = $dbh->prepare (qq{ SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE some_column 
+= ? }); # The ? is a placeholder
    $sth->execute($str); # $str is what your searching for
    $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref(); # This executes the above
    $sth->finish();# This closes the connection.
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That is untested, so please take it with a grain of salt.

I actually store everything in a LOCAL module I create. I have the script push the location to @inc then just use the module. Then my connections look more like this (EVER TIME):

$dbh = SOMEDIR::SOMENAME::Connect();
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That way I don't have to re-write the whole dang code every single time. I just use that statement and it's much faster.

Just because I showed you that, does not mean you don't need to show more of your code to get a better answer. I'm just showing you how I do it, PLUS if you leave the print Content-type commented out, you'll get a error in your browser every time. The error logs for that should say premature end of script headers.

Hope that helps some.
Richard.

UPDATE:

Sorry, I did not NOTICE the part that you commented out the print Content-type because you ALREADY used CGI.pms functions which I recommended. My bad. Please disregard that part.

Thanks!

Added update per author request - dvergin 2003-01-23