Maybe you stripped more than what you had to to post your code here, but from what I can see, 
my ($buffer,$name,$value,@pairs,$pair);
@pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);

[download]

you are acting on an empty $buffer: the my declaration of $buffer 'initializes' it, so when you use split() to get the values from it, you are acting on an 'empty' variable. You might want to move that 

my ($buffer);

[download]
a little higher on your script.

Do you get any warnings that tell you you are acting on undefined data? try printing $buffer before and after the split(), because it might tell you the problem is there...

Update: you say you don't even get 'empty' lines printed, which tells me you never run the for() loop... try to print() @pairs before entering the for()

hope this helps,

In reply to Re: Some code by CukiMnstr
in thread use strict seems to hose my code by aeshirey

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.