Great to hear it works for you -- I wonder what I am doing wrong. Boy, I wish it worked for me.
I made some changes, with a minor bit of progress. 
#maybe the next two lines can be combined -- I am not sure
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
use CGI qw/:standard :html2/;
#the standard also says if I set :html2, xhtml will go away (but it do
+esn't seem to have an effect).

#no idea how to set -dtd attributes
my $query = CGI->new;
    print $query->start_html(-title=>'Argh!',
    -background=>"../images/$SiteName.background.jpg",
    -link=>'brown',
    -vlink=>'#8b4513',
    -no_xhtml=>1, #this has no effect...
    -dtd=>'3.2 DTD' #this does the trick, but not listed in the standa
+rd as to how to set it -- I hope this is right...
}

[download]
And results:
<!DOCTYPE html
    PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
     "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US">

[download]


The worst part, is trying to validate the output using the w3c validator.

Error Line 4 column 12: there is no attribute "XMLNS".
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en-US" xml:lang="en-U
+S"><head>
You have used the attribute named above in your document, but the docu
+ment type you are using does not support that attribute for this elem
+ent. This error is often caused by incorrect use of the "Strict" docu
+ment type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Tr
+ansitional" document type to get the "target" attribute), or by using
+ vendor proprietary extensions such as "marginheight" (this is usuall
+y fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).

This error may also result if the element itself is not supported in t
+he document type you are using, as an undefined element will have no 
+supported attributes; in this case, see the element-undefined error m
+essage for further information.

How to fix: check the spelling and case of the element and attribute, 
+(Remember XHTML is all lower-case) and/or check that they are both al
+lowed in the chosen document type, and/or use CSS instead of this att
+ribute.

Error Line 4 column 65: there is no attribute "XML:LANG".

Error Line 7 column 93: document type does not allow element "META" he
+re.


The element named above was found in a context where it is not allowed
+. This could mean that you have incorrectly nested elements -- such a
+s a "style" element in the "body" section instead of inside "head" --
+ or two elements that overlap (which is not allowed).

One common cause for this error is the use of XHTML syntax in HTML doc
+uments. Due to HTML's rules of implicitly closed elements, this error
+ can create cascading effects. For instance, using XHTML's "self-clos
+ing" tags for "meta" and "link" in the "head" section of a HTML docum
+ent may cause the parser to infer the end of the "head" section and t
+he beginning of the "body" section (where "link" and "meta" are not a
+llowed; hence the reported error).

[download]


Anyway, I am confused. I wish this was a bit more straight-forward. I don't understand why things are being this difficult for me -- I just wanted a simple (and valid) html document header, not having to find and set all of these complicated flags everywhere to make the output simple.

Thanks again for the help.

In reply to Re^2: XML tags using perl CGI by pmcaveman
in thread XML tags using perl CGI by pmcaveman

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