thank you for the previous responses. they were helpful in the areas of subsequent scholarship. specifically i learned how to accomplish the initial desired task at the bottom of this thread by placing a calendar widget (using javascript) in static HTML - as in the following example static html code and wherein everything works fine. for purposes of differentiation, i shall refer to this solution (following) as the "code-in-html" solution. 
<HTML><HEAD><script type='text/JavaScript' src='scw.js'></script></HEA
+D><BODY>
<FORM action="http://www.e1surveys.com/cgi-bin/testform1.cgi" method="
+POST">
Enter date:<input name='birthdate' id='date1' type='text' value=''/>
<img src='calendar.jpg' title='Click Here' alt='Click Here'
onclick="scwShow(document.getElementById('date1'),this);" /><br/>
Enter your name: <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="name" SIZE="30">
<BR>
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Submit" NAME="Submit Button">
<INPUT TYPE="reset" VALUE="Reset" NAME="Reset Button">
</FORM></BODY></HTML>

[download]
now here's the rub - continuing scholarship in perl has opened the possibility of an alternative approach using the same javascript (calendar widget) but this time within an "html-in-code" solution (see the below perl code) which generates html dynamically. when the static html generated by the "code-in-html" solution, is viewed side-by-side with the dynamic html generated by the "html-in-code" solution, the two htmls generated are materially the same. however of course, while closeness works in horseshoes, it fails in perl execution.
the line of code "print header ($html1)" causes a unexpected user prompt asking if the user wants to download the referenced scw.js javascript file (which already exists in the same directory as my cgi script server side) - - and then the program abends without giving any errors. this does not occur using the static html solution, or if the line of code is changed to "print header ()" - but of course that negates use of the calendar widget'.
in order to grow in my understanding of perl, i would like to pursue the more flexible (ultimatedly), albeit more difficult to implement (at least for me) below "html-in-code" (dynamic html) solution. i get the sense that the root of my problem is within the dynamically generated header data, but don't know how to navigate this obstacle. your help would be welcome. thx. 
#! /usr/bin/perl -wT
use CGI qw(:standard escapeHTML);    
use CGI::Carp qw(warningsToBrowser fatalsToBrowser); 
use strict;
my $html1 = qq(<script type='text/JavaScript' src='scw.js'></script>);
my $html2 = qq(<input name='birthdate' id='date1' type='text' value=''
+/>
<img src='calendar.jpg' title='Click Here' alt='Click Here'
onclick="scwShow(document.getElementById('date1'),this);" /><br/>);

print header ($html1),
start_html ();
print p ("Element names & values submitted in previous form:");
my @names = param ();    # get list of parameter names
if (!@names)        
{
    print p ("(no elements present)");
}
else                
{
    my @item = ();
    foreach my $name (@names)
    {
        my @val = param ($name);
        $val[0] = "[" . join (", ", @val) . "]" if @val > 1;
        push (@item, escapeHTML ("$name: ($val[0])\n"));
    }
    print ul (li (\@item));    
}
print hr ();
print start_form (-action => url ()),
p ("Enter date:", $html2), br(),
p ("Enter your name:", textfield (-name =>"name", -type=>"text", -size
+=>"30")), br(),
submit (-name => "Submit Button", -value => "Submit"),
reset (-name => "Reset Button", -value => "Reset"),
end_form ();
print end_html ();
exit (0);

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In reply to Re: obtaining yyyy-mm-dd via a calendar object by gmacfadden
in thread obtaining yyyy-mm-dd via a calendar object by gmacfadden

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