Good point. It should help with my enlightenment, as well as make it easier for others to see and comment. I've stripped out what is clearly not relevant, and left just bits of the global block and the subroutine. It does still reflect the issue. Error log complains about some undefined $term in a print statement, which is ok. In an example where I see the issue, the source code of the rendered page has 
<!--bless({
  ".charset" => "ISO-8859-1",
  ".fieldnames" => {},
  ".parameters" => ["exec", "table", "orderby"],
  ".r" => bless(do{\(my $o = 94308584056848)}, "Apache2::RequestRec"),
  "escape" => 1,
  "param" => { exec => ["list"], orderby => [2], table => ["users"] },
  "use_tempfile" => 1,

[download]
yet 
<!-- variables (index, desc) are (10, 1) -->

[download]
which would have been correct from a previous instance. The CGI: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# vim:sw=2:et:ic:sm:syn=perl:nu:si

use Getopt::Std;
use strict;
use warnings;

use DBI;
use CGI;
use CGI::Carp qw(warningsToBrowser fatalsToBrowser);
use Data::Dump qw(dump);

my $DEBUG = 1;

# SQL fields for table users
my @USER_FIELDS =
  qw(usertypes_idusertypes lastname firstname middlename suffix email 
+cellPhone authorizingParty lastAccountReview lastReviewRequest accoun
+tsOwned);

# Human names for user fields
my %LABELS = (
  'usertypes_idusertypes' => 'Type of User',
  'lastname'              => 'Last Name',
  'firstname'             => 'First Name',
  'middlename'            => 'Middle Name',
  'suffix'                => 'Suffix',
  'cellPhone'             => 'Cell',
  'email'                 => 'Email Address',
  'authorizingParty'      => 'ID for Authorizing Party',
  'lastAccountReview'     => 'Date Accounts Last Validated',
  'lastReviewRequest'     => 'Latest Date for Account Revalidation',
  'accountsOwned'         => 'Number of Accounts Owned' );

my %opts;
my $OPTIONS = 'h';
my $optsStat = getopts( $OPTIONS, \%opts );

# sanity checks go here; provide prompt and set $optsStat = 0;
if ( ( $optsStat != 1 ) or ( $opts{'h'} ) ) {
  HELP_MESSAGE();
  exit;
}

my $q = CGI->new;
print '<!--', dump($q), "-->\n";
print $q->header,
  $q->start_html(
  -title  => 'Update identity user base for identity management store'
+,
  -author => 'woody.weaver@us.ibm.com',
  ),
  $q->h1('Manage users and other lists for the OMS master repository')
+,
  $q->p('Web interface for managing users in the OMS centralized back 
+end repository'), "\n";

if ($DEBUG) {
  print $q->hr;
  print $q->p('Debugging: '), $q->Dump, $q->hr;
}

print $q->start_form(),
  'Please choose an action: &nbsp;',
  $q->popup_menu( -name => 'exec', -values => ['add', 'list', 'search'
+] ),
  $q->popup_menu( -name => 'table', -values => ['users', 'VPN', 'VMacc
+ounts', 'supporting tables'] ),
  '<p>', $q->submit, '<p>', $q->hr;

my $exec  = $q->param('exec');
my $table = $q->param('table');
if ($exec) {    # ok, so this should be a jump table.  Sue me.
  if ( $exec eq 'list' ) {
    if ( $table eq 'users' ) {
      listUsers();
    } else {
      print "Sorry, I don't know how to list the table $table\n";
    }
  } else {
    print "Sorry, I don't understand the action $exec\n";
  }
} ## end if ($exec)
print "<p>", $q->submit;

print $q->hr, $q->end_form, "\n", $q->end_html;

sub listUsers {
  my $dbh        = DBI->connect( 'DBI:mysql:identity', 'idmanagement',
+ '' ) or die "Cannot connect: $DBI::errstr";
  my $preparestr = 'SELECT * FROM usertypes';
  my $sth        = $dbh->prepare($preparestr) or die "Can't prepare $p
+reparestr: $dbh->errstr()";
  $sth->execute() or die "Can't execute $preparestr: $dbh->errstr()";
  my %usertypes;
  while ( my $ref = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref() ) {
    $usertypes{$$ref[0]} = $$ref[1];
  }
  $preparestr = 'SELECT idusers, category';
  foreach (my $i=1; $i<=$#USER_FIELDS; $i++) {
    $preparestr .= ", $USER_FIELDS[$i]";
  }
  $preparestr .= ' FROM users, usertypes 
       WHERE usertypes_idusertypes = usertypes.idusertypes
       ORDER by ';
# what should we order the table by?
  die "q got killed!" unless defined $q;
  my $index = $q->param('orderby');
  my $desc = $q->param('desc');
  $index = 1 if not defined $index;
  print "\n<!-- variables (index, desc) are ($index, $desc) -->\n" if 
+$DEBUG;
  $preparestr .= $USER_FIELDS[$index];
  $preparestr .= ' DESC' if $desc == 1;
  print "\n<!-- Preparing $preparestr -->\n" if $DEBUG;
  $sth = $dbh->prepare($preparestr) or die "Can't prepare $preparestr:
+ " . $dbh->errstr();
  $sth->execute() or die "Can't execute $preparestr: ".$dbh->errstr();
  print 'Found ', $sth->rows, " users in table\n";
  my $subtitle = 'Listing of Users, ordered by ';
  $subtitle .= $LABELS{$USER_FIELDS[$index]};
  $subtitle .= ' (descending)' if $desc == 1;
  print $q->h2($subtitle), "\n<table border>\n\t<tr><th>ID</th><th>Typ
+e";
  foreach (my $i=1; $i<=$#USER_FIELDS; $i++) {
    my $flags = '?exec=list&amp;table=users&amp;orderby='.$i;
    if ($i == $index) {
      $flags .= '&amp;desc=1';
    }
    print "</th><th><a href=\"$flags\">$LABELS{$USER_FIELDS[$i]}</a>";
  }
  print "</th></tr>\n";
  while ( my $ref = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref() ) {
    my $firstone = 1;
    print "\t<tr>";
    foreach my $term (@$ref) {
      if ($firstone) {
        print "<td><a href=\"editUser.pl?iduser=$term\">$term</a></td>
+";
        $firstone = 0;
      } else {
        print "<td>$term</td>";
      }
    }
    print "</tr>\n";
  }
  print "</table>\n";

} ## end sub listUsers

sub HELP_MESSAGE {
  print <<EOH;
usage: $0 [-$OPTIONS]
  -h    this message
EOH
  return;
}

[download]

In reply to Re^4: CGI scoping question by WoodyWeaver
in thread CGI scoping question by WoodyWeaver

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