Hello,

I'm making a simple survey site and using the CGI::Cookie module to store the user information through the course of the survey. The information includes an array. This seems like it should be a simple problem, but for the life of me I can't figure it out.

Essentially, I'm storing one cookie, whose value is a hash containing the user ID number and a reference to the necessary array. The problem arises when the script is called again and I attempt to access the array through the cookie. The array ref only exists now as a string i.e. "ARRAY(0x87480c)". Thus, when I try to access elements in the array, I get the error:

"Can't use string ("ARRAY(0x87480c)") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use"

Does anyone know why the array itself isn't being saved? My code is based directly on the CGI::Cookie tutorial page...

This is the code that initializes the cookie 

my $porder = gen_order(30);
my $c = $cgi->cookie(-name=>'info',-value=>{ 'user' => $UID,
                                               'porder' => $porder,
                                               'count' => 1 });

print $session->header(-cookie=>$c);

sub gen_order {
    my $limit = shift;
    my @nums = (1..$limit);
    fisher_yates_shuffle(\@nums);
    return \@nums;
}

[download]

And here is the code that tries to retrieve the array 

my %info = $cgi->cookie('info');
my $porder = $info{'porder'};

my $current = $porder->[0];

[download]

In reply to CGI cookie turns array ref into string by Anonymous Monk

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