Your original question has been answered, but I'd just like to point out a better way of printing out text to the user. You have the following snippet of code:

print "<FORM METHOD=\"post\" ACTION=\"http://hostname/~user/cgi-bin/da
+tabase/homepage.cgi\">";

print "<TABLE><TR VALIGN=\"baseline\"><TD VALIGN=\"baseline\"><h3>Ente
+r user name</h3></TD><TD><INPU
+T TYPE=\"TEXT\" NAME=\"username\" SIZE=\"10\"></TD></TR><TR VALIGN=\"
+baseline\"><TD VALIGN=\"baseli
+ne\"><h3>Enter password</h3></TD> <TD><INPUT TYPE=\"password\" NAME=\
+"password\" SIZE=\"10\"></TD><
+/TR><TD><INPUT TYPE=\"SUBMIT\" value=\"Log in\"></TABLE></FORM>";
[download]

That hurts the eyes a lot and is difficult to read and would be a nightmare to maintain. You might want to look up on how to use qq() to print out text to the user in a way in which you wouldn't have to backslash all the double quotes. Also, I'm sorry to say it, but the html itself is horrendous. You use H3 tags within a table cell just to enlarge the text a bit. There is in existance a th tag that will boldface the text within a cell for you. Sorry if I make this sound harsh, but I think you need to spend some major time learning html a little better. BTW, the valign='baseline' attributes won't do much for you. Uch. Myself, I would rewrite that like this:

print start_form({
 method => 'post',
 action => 'http://hostname/.../homepage.cgi'
}),
 table(),
  Tr(
   th( {align=>'left'}, 'Enter Username:' ),
   td( textfield('username') )
  ),
  Tr(
   th( {align=>'left'}, 'Enter Password:' ),
   td( password_field('password') )
  ),
  Tr( th( {colspan=>2}, submit('Login') ) )
 ),
 end_form();
[download]

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Update: Cool! I got node_id 237000. Nice round number :)

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