I'm writing a messageboard system using perl(now w/CGI.pm) and am having a bit of trouble getting the default value of a textarea to do what i'm trying to get it to do. what i've got is 
print $cgi->start_td({valign=>'TOP'}), "Message:  ", $cgi->end_td,
      $cgi->start_td, $cgi->textarea({name=>'MESSAGE', wrap=>'SOFT', r
+ows=>24,
                                      cols=>80, tabindex=>3, -default=
+>"On $date, $from wrote:\n$message"}),

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This doesn't do it, all it outputs is $message so I tried throwing it all into $replytxt and then doing this 
$replytxt = "On $date $from wrote $message";
print $cgi->start_td({valign=>'TOP'}), "Message:  ", $cgi->end_td,
      $cgi->start_td, $cgi->textarea({name=>'MESSAGE', wrap=>'SOFT', r
+ows=>24,
                                      cols=>80, tabindex=>3, -default=
+>$replytxt}),

[download]
same thing, I think it has something to do with that string, but i'm not sure. I've also tried using qw and single quotes instead of double, same results any ideas?

In reply to default values of textareas using CGI.pm by create 3 arrays. first array last names, second name first name and third array

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