I am working on a script that interacts with other programs. Below is a simple script that demonstrates a problem I have run into. This simple script increments a count in a file, and allows the page visitor to reset the count. My problem is, I don't want the user to 'accidentally' reset the count by 1) reseting the count using the button, and then 2) hitting refresh on their browser. and 3) breezing past the expired page warning because they didn't stop to read it.
Is there a way to easily keep a user from being able to refresh a page after doing something where refreshing would be bad (but not at other times)? I was thinking of redirecting back to the same page again, restoring the safety of hitting refresh but I would need to pass a hidden form element too, which I've yet to figure out how to do. Can anyone help me out here? Preferably with out using cookies? Thanks. 
#!perl -w
use strict;
use CGI qw( :standard );
use CGI::Carp qw( fatalsToBrowser ); 
$|=1;
my $count = 0;
print header, start_html('Simple Counter'), "\n";
if( -e 'cnt.tmp' and not param('Start Over') )
{
  open COUNT, 'cnt.tmp' or die "Failed to open cnt.tmp, $!\n";
  while(<COUNT>)
  {
    if( /^\s*(\d+)\s*$/ )
    {
      $count = $1;
      last
    }
  }
  close COUNT or die "Failed to close cnt.tmp, $!\n";
}
print start_form(),
      "Count equals $count",
      br(), "\n",
      submit( -name=>"Again" ),
      submit( -name=>"Start Over", -value=>"Start Over" ),
      end_form(), "\n";
      
open COUNT, '>cnt.tmp' or die "Failed to open >cnt.tmp, $!\n";
print COUNT ++$count;
close COUNT or die "Failed to close >cnt.tmp, $!\n";
print end_html();

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In reply to CGI Refresh question by Adam

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