Fellow Monasterians:

This might be splitting hairs, but I do so much of this type of thing as a Web developer, that I thought I should try to refine my methods.

For years I have used CGI::Application, HTML::Template, and the C::A plugin for HTML::FillInForm to handle form validation and error handling using a mixture of the H::T associate option and H::FIF:

[HTML]
<p>Name: <input name="address" type="text" value="<tmpl_var address>" 
+/></p>
<p>More info: <input name="more_info" type="checkbox" value="yes" /></
+p>

[Perl]
#note: %sql is later used to populate a database and notify e-mail
#validate() untaints and checks for empty or invalid values

my ( %sql, @errors, $error, $fifvalues );

($sql{'address'}, $error ) = $self->validate( $self->query->param('add
+ress') );
   if ( $error ) { push @errors, ( { 'error' => 'Address'.$error } ); 
+}
($sql{'more_info'}, $error ) = $self->validate($self->query->param( 'm
+ore_info') );
   if ( $error ) { push @errors, ( { 'error' => 'More info'.$error } )
+; }
   $fifvalues->{'more_info'} = $sql{'more_info'}; 
   #needed because 'associate' doesn't handle checkboxes, radios, and 
+selects
   
my $template = $self->load_tmpl( 'contact.tmpl',
                                 associate => $self->query();
                                 die_on_bad_params => 0,
                               );

$template->param( errors => \@errors );

return $self->fill_form( \$template->output, $fifvalues );
[download]

But I got to thinking (always dangerous), why don't I use H::FIF only and drop extra code like <tmpl_var foobar> in my HTML and use just H::FIF to re-populate? So, I end up with:

[HTML]
<p>Name: <input name="address" type="text" value="" /></p>
<p>More info: <input name="more_info" type="checkbox" value="yes" /></
+p>

[Perl]
my ( %sql, @errors, $error, $fifvalues );

($sql{'address'}, $error ) = $self->validate( $self->query->param('add
+ress') );
   if ( $error ) { push @errors, ( { 'error' => 'Address'.$error } ); 
+}
($sql{'more_info'}, $error ) = $self->validate($self->query->param( 'm
+ore_info') );
   if ( $error ) { push @errors, ( { 'error' => 'More info'.$error } )
+; }

my $template = $self->load_tmpl( 'contact.tmpl',
                                 die_on_bad_params => 0,
                               );

$template->param( errors => \@errors );

for my $key ( keys %sql ) {
   $fifvalues->{$key} = $sql{$key};
}

return $self->fill_form( \$template->output, $fifvalues );
[download]

The question I've been asking myself is what do I gain or loose in style, method, efficiency, etc? IMHO, the later method of just using H::FIF to re-populate the form is cleaner than mixing the associate option with H::FIF.

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