There are two ways of receiving requests in a CGI script:

• by GET : http://your.address/cgi-bin/yourscript.pl?field1='value1';field2='another value' , or by form submit
• by POST: all the variables where assigned at a form that submits by POST to your cgi.script (the values are invisible at the address)

You can read this on-line book: Perl for the Web by Chris Radcliff , find more info about the server - environment variables (how to use them).

The module that you need to learn about is CGI.pm, read something simple as: a tutorial of CGI::Application for beginers, as a starting. But it is not even the peak of the iceberg :) .