Yes, that's what it's for, although your naming really sucks, and you're using || '' against the wrong thing. 

my $comment = $cgi->param('comment') || ''; # or whatever

...

my $comment_html = $cgi->escapeHTML($comment);
print header();
print "<p>Comments: $comment_html\n";

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In reply to Re^3: Best way to use escapeHTML by ikegami
in thread Best way to use escapeHTML by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


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