Try this:

my $unverified = 'this';
my %dbm = (
  this        => 'bar',
);

print $dbm{$unverified},$/;
print $dbm{'$unverified'},$/;
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The single quotes are preventing variable expansion, so your database only contains one key, with the word '$notverified' in it. Inside single quotes a $ doesn't mean anything except dollars. Use $dbm{$notverified} instead.

I tried removing the single quotes but it creates an internal server error saying the line with $dbm{$notverified} needs a global symbol. I try to my it but it says that's incorrect syntax.

Any suggestions?

"Age is nothing more than an inaccurate number bestowed upon us at birth as just another means for others to judge and classify us"

sulfericacid

After looking through your code a little more thoroughly, I see that $notverified and $verified are never defined. So if you remove the single quotes, you get an error. If you leave them, you are creating the keys named for your variables. And don't get me started on your logic behind this...

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use CGI;
use POSIX;

my $query = CGI->new;
my %form = %{$query->Vars};

require SDBM_File;

my %dbm;
my $dbm_file = "evs.dbm";

my $accountID = $query->url_param('accountID');
my $accountAD = $query->url_param('accountAD');

tie %dbm, 'SDBM_File', $dbm_file, O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0644;
if (!tied %dbm) {
  print "database unsuccessful.\n";
}

  use CGI qw/:standard/;
  print header,
        start_html('EVS'),
        start_form,
        "What's your email address? ",textfield('usermail'),p,
        submit,
        end_form,
        hr;
chomp $form{"usermail"};

my $chars;
my $adminmail = "admin\@test.com";
my $sendmail = "/usr/lib/sendmail";


my @chars = ( "A" .. "Z", "a" .. "z", 0 .. 9, qw(! @ $ % ^ & * ) );
my $ID;

### randomize characters
do { $ID = join '', map { $chars[ rand @chars ] } 1..17; } 
while grep {$_ eq $ID} my @used;

### If USERMAIL exists add information to notverified DBM
if ($form{'usermail'}) {
my @unverified_emails=($form{'usermail'}, $ID);
$dbm{'$notverified'}= join "::",@unverified_emails;
#foreach my $mail (split /::/, $dbm{'notverified'}) {
#  print "$mail is not verified!\n";
#}
        print "An email has been sent to $form{'usermail'}.  Please ch
+eck it to verify your information.\n";


### email the users
my $accountAD = "$form{'usermail'}";
my $accountID = $ID;

open (MAIL, "|$sendmail -t") or die "Cannot access mail";
  print MAIL "To: $form{'usermail'}\n";
  print MAIL "From: $adminmail\n";
  print MAIL "Subject: Verify your Email Address\n\n";
  print MAIL "http://sulfericacid.perlmonk.org/evs/evs.pl?accountID=$a
+ccountID&accountAD=$accountAD\n";
close (MAIL);
}

### If url_param() exists
if ($accountID && $accountAD) {
&params;
}

###  If url_param() exists check to see if it exists in DBM
sub params { 
if ($accountID && ($accountAD ne '') && (exists $dbm{'$notverified'}))
+ {
$dbm{'$verified'} = $accountAD;
  print "Your address has been indexed!\n";

### test database prints
foreach (sort keys(%dbm)) {
print "$_ => $dbm{$_}\n";
}
} else {
  print "Your email address and registration did not match.  Please ch
+eck your email again.\n";
}
}
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