it seems you've fixed your immediate problem, although i see you've left yourself open to more problems in the future. i have a few suggestions:

sub BuildMMList
{
  ## enforce strict programming methods (see strict)
  ##   if you can't do this for the whole script, do it in each
  ##   subroutine until the whole script has been refactored
  ## while you're at it, use warnings, too (see warnings)
  use strict;
  use warnings;

  ## pass parameters to the subroutine -- global variables are trouble
  ## assign the passed parameters to variables local to the scope of t
+he sub
  my( $list, $mm_file ) = @_;

  ## use the three parameter form of open (see perlfunc)
  ## localize your filehandles to avoid namespace pollution
  ## don't quote variables unneccessarially (see perlvar)
  ## don't use the '&' sigil when calling subs (see perlsub)
  ## make your error messages verbose
  open( local *FILE, '<', $mm_file )
    or error_message( "$0: Can't open data file: $mm_file: $!");

  ## use a while loop to process the file in memory
  ## this avoids temp variables, and avoids c-like for loops
  while( <*FILE> )
  {
    ## use the 3-arg form of split to limit fields
    ## throw away other fields by assigning to 'undef'
    my( $opt, undef ) = split /``/, $_, 2;

    ## use quote operators, so quote characters don't need to be escap
+ed
    print qq{<option value="$opt">$opt</option>\n};
  }
}

[download]

i haven't tested this code, so there may be a bug or two lurking. anywhere i have a parenthesised note, you should use perldoc to find more info, or supersearch perlmonks for more.

i'm sorry i can't offer you more help (like using taint mode to safely process cgi params), but i hope this will get you started, and you'll go looking for more as you need it.

~Particle *accelerates*

In reply to Re^2: Split a database by particle
in thread Split a database by lisaw

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