Just to verify what jsprat is saying:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use CGI ':standard';
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

$i = 6; || $j = 7;
[download]

produces:

Content-type: text/html

<H1>Software error:</H1>
<PRE>syntax error at /tmp/t63 line 6, near &quot;; ||&quot;
Execution of /tmp/t63 aborted due to compilation errors.
</PRE>
<P>
For help, please send mail to this site's webmaster, giving this error
+ message 
and the time and date of the error.

[Tue Aug  5 12:58:07 2003] t63: syntax error at /tmp/t63 line 6, near 
+"; ||"
[Tue Aug  5 12:58:07 2003] t63: Execution of /tmp/t63 aborted due to c
+ompilation errors.
[download]

chriso: Do you see the same problems with this simple script, or does it display the error in the browser as you expect?