try this for fun - it accepts the text box values as anrray

#!/usr/bin/perl
## relatively painless iteration over multiple selection boxes
use CGI qw(:standard);

@sel = param('sel');

@entry = ("first", "second", "third", "fourth", "fifth", "sixth", "sev
+enth", "eighth", "ninth", "tenth");

print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";

if ($sel[0] ne '')
{
#  do database stuff here (each entry in the sel array is the index to
+ your array of data for the database)
## just for fun show boxes checked
   foreach $ent (@sel)
   {
      print "you checked the $entry[$ent] box<br>\n";
   }
}

print <<EOF
  <form name=fred action=jd.cgi>

  <table>
    <tr>
       <td>
          one <input type=checkbox name=sel value=0>
       </td>
       <td>
          two <input type=checkbox name=sel value=1>
       </td>
       <td>
          three <input type=checkbox name=sel value=2>
       </td>
       <td>
         four <input type=checkbox name=sel value=3>
       </td>
       <td>
          five <input type=checkbox name=sel value=4>
       </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
       <td>
          six <input type=checkbox name=sel value=5>
       </td>
       <td>
          seven <input type=checkbox name=sel value=6>
       </td>
       <td>
          eight <input type=checkbox name=sel value=7>
       </td>
       <td>
          nine <input type=checkbox name=sel value=8>
       </td>
       <td>
          ten <input type=checkbox name=sel value=9>
       </td>
    </tr>
  </table>
  <input type=submit value=showme>
  </form>
EOF


Hope this helps
John
[download]

Ughh! If you are going to use CGI, then use CGI!!

#!/usr/bin/perl -T

use strict;
use warnings;
use CGI::Pretty qw(:standard);

my @entry = (
   [qw(one first)], [qw(two second)], [qw(three third)],
   [qw(four fourth)], [qw(five fifth)],
   [qw(six sixth)], [qw(seven seventh)], [qw(eight eighth)],
   [qw(nine ninth)], [qw(ten tenth)],
);

print header, start_html('test');
print map "$entry[$_][1] box checked".br, param 'sel' if param 'go';
print start_form('fred'),
   table(
      Tr(td[map checkbox('sel',undef,$_,$entry[$_][0]), 0..4]),
      Tr(td[map checkbox('sel',undef,$_,$entry[$_][0]), 5..9]),
   ),
   submit(-name=>'go',-value=>'showme'),
   end_form, end_html,
;
[download]

;)

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

More often than not I believe that CGI's html-generating methods are not a good approach.

Of course I also don't have a single answer that I would suggest in place, there are many ways of generating HTML and they each are appropriate in different places. For more detailed thinking on the factors that I consider, please see Re (tilly) 6: Code Critique.