The CGI module already has a method to do what you describe above: 
  my $query=new CGI();
  $query->import_names('C');
  print "C - $C::foo";

[download]
For safety's sake it doesn't let you import into the main namespace. It is not safe to import into the main namespace (or other namespace that you don't reserve for just storing CGI params) because a cracker could overwrite any of your variables. Consider what would happen with the code I put below if a hacker "submitted" to the form with (the CGI formatted version of ) "cmd=rm -f /*". Where you weren't expecting cmd to be passed as a CGI param. 
my $cmd="ls";
foreach $key (CGI::param()) { ${$key} = CGI::param($key) }
system $cmd;

[download]
Kind of a silly example but it does demonstrate the veunerability of arbitrarily importing CGI parameters into the main namespace.

In reply to Re: Putting HTML fieldnames in symbol space by lhoward
in thread Putting HTML fieldnames in symbol space by Russ

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