Update: That fixed, you also need to lowercase Td to td. The CGI.pm function is called td, not Td. Funnily enough Tr is called Tr, to avoid confusion with the transliteration operator.

CU
Robartes-

Ok, I added the commas and the errors nearly disappeared! Thanks so much! But I have another problem though and since I'm really new to using CGI I don't exactly know how to debug things like this myself.

The error I get this time is "Thu Apr 3 07:11:31 2003 tags.pl: syntax error at tags.pl line 39, near ");" ", any suggestions?

It's kinda funny how it's Tr and td, but whatever works :)

print start_form(), table( 
        Tr(Td( "Email Address: "), Td(textfield('usermail')),
        Tr(Td("Author: "),   Td(textfield('author')),
        Tr(Td("Distributor: "), Td(textfield('distributor')),
        Tr(Td("Copyright: "), Td(textfield('copyright')),
        Tr(Td("Abstract: "), Td(textfield('abstract')),
        Tr(Td("Keywords: "), Td(textarea(-name=>'keywords',
                  -rows=>10,
                  -columns=>50)),
        Tr(Td("Description: "), Td(textarea(-name=>'description',
                  -rows=>10,
                  -columns=>50))),
        Tr(Td("Robots: "), Td(popup_menu(-name=>'robots',
               -values=>['','index','noindex','follow','nofollow']))),
        Tr(Td("Distribution: "), Td(popup_menu(-name=>'distribution',
               -values=>['','local','global']))),
        Tr(Td("Language: "), Td(popup_menu(-name=>'language',
               -values=>['','EN','EN-GB','EN-US','ES','ES-ES','FR','IT
+','JA','KO','DE']))),
        Tr(Td("Rating: "), Td(popup_menu(-name=>'rating',
               -values=>['','kids','general','mature','restricted'])))
+,
        Tr(Td(), Td(submit)),
        end_form(),
        ),
        hr();  #### this is line 39
[download]



"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

Your first textarea is missing a ')' at the end.
If you happen to use vim (or vi), the way to find such a thing is to put the cursor on the first (or last) '(' (or '{' or whatever) character and hit on '%'.
In most cases this will jump to a place where the error is close.

syntax error at tags.pl line 39, near ");" ", any suggestions?

Your parentheses are unbalanced. On at least the first two "Tr" lines, you're opening more than you're closing.

If your HTML is getting this complex, it might be time to look at HTML::Template or something similar.

That's the one pita with CGI.pm tables - I love them, but you've got to keep bouncing on the "match bracket" key. It looks like this might be to do with a mis-matched bracket somewhere (but I don't see ');" "' on line 39 - puzzling)

A minor point though (from a coding point of view, but important where your HTML validation is concerned) - you appear to have your 'start_form()' outside the table, while the 'end_form()' is inside it. Best to stick the end_form() outside too, so validators don't complain about your nesting.
Cheers,
Ben

That's the reason why I always use print "<TR><TD>Blah blah blah</TD></TR>"; just because I know it works... :) (Yes, I know conceptually it's beautifull to reuse the tr & td code, but sometimes I feel that reinventing the wheel works best...)

Many other people have answered your questions correctly, I however want to add that to avoid this mess its often easier to use a templating system where you separate your output from your Perl code. I personally use HTML::Template but there are several good ones out there.

Chris

As for the formatting, I don't know if you'd find something more like this much easier to read:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use CGI::Pretty qw(:all);

print header(),
 start_html('foo'),
  start_form(),
   table(
   Tr([
    td([ 'Email Address:', textfield('usermail') ]),
    td([ 'Author:',        textfield('author') ]),
    td([ 'Distributor:',   textfield('distributor') ]),
    td([ 'Copyright:',     textfield('copyright') ]),
    td([ 'Abstract:',      textfield('abstract') ]),
    td([ 'Keywords:',      textarea({ name => 'keywords',
                                      rows => 10,
                                      cols => 50 })
    ]),
    td([ 'Description:',   textarea({ name =>'description',
                                      rows => 10,
                                      cols => 50 })
    ]),
    td([ 'Robots:',        popup_menu({ name   => 'robots',
                                        values => [
                                         '', 'index', 'noindex',
                                         'follow', 'nofollow'
                                        ] })
    ]),
    td([ 'Distribution:',  popup_menu({ name   => 'distribution',
                                        values => [
                                         '', 'local', 'global'
                                        ] })
    ]),
    td([ 'Language:',      popup_menu({ name   => 'language',
                                        values => [
                                         '', 'EN', 'EN-GB', 'EN-US', '
+ES',
                                         'ES-ES', 'FR', 'IT', 'JA', 'K
+O', 'DE'
                                        ] })
    ]),
    td([ 'Rating:',        popup_menu({ name   => 'rating',
                                        values => [
                                         '', 'kids', 'general',
                                         'mature', 'restricted'
                                        ] })
    ]),
                                         '', 'local', 'global'
                                        ] })
    ]),
    td([ 'Language:',      popup_menu({ name   => 'language',
                                        values => [
                                         '', 'EN', 'EN-GB', 'EN-US', '
+ES',
                                         'ES-ES', 'FR', 'IT', 'JA', 'K
+O', 'DE'
                                        ] })
    ]),
    td([ 'Rating:',        popup_menu({ name   => 'rating',
                                        values => [
                                         '', 'kids', 'general',
                                         'mature', 'restricted'
                                        ] })
    ]),
    th({ colspan => 2, valign => 'bottom' },
     submit()
    )
   ])
  ),
 end_form(),
 hr();
[download]

If the above content is missing any vital points or you feel that any of the information is misleading, incorrect or irrelevant, please feel free to downvote the post. At the same time, please reply to this node or /msg me to inform me as to what is wrong with the post, so that I may update the node to the best of my ability.

I really appreciate all of your help everyone, there is no way I could have learned as much perl as I did if it weren't for such an involved community like PerlMonks. Special thanks to Coruscate for teaching me how to make tables and then later how to fix things!

Coruscate, I don't find your method easier to read than mine, probably because I've stared at my codes this way for quite a few hours and changing that would just end up confusing me even more. It's funny, my script has been rewritten three times by three different people in this past couple of days, sometimes I think some of you like to help more than you like to write your own scripts.

Thanks again everyone, ++ for everyone.

"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

Ah, but there is a reason some of us prefer to rewrite other people's stuff. I don't have to come up with an idea or even a starting place for coding. It's easy to take the work someone else has done and redo it a different way. Of course, this doesn't hold true if the original code is obfuscated in certain ways. Then it's a nightmare to rewrite :P

---

If the above content is missing any vital points or you feel that any of the information is misleading, incorrect or irrelevant, please feel free to downvote the post. At the same time, please reply to this node or /msg me to inform me as to what is wrong with the post, so that I may update the node to the best of my ability.