My code from below is suppose to take user input and submit it to a database. Everything works fine except of course for the data being stored in their respective variables. Whenever I attempt to do this I have a custom error_message returned for each field. I know its not the $error_message problem or how I submit the data yet I was thinking it was one of the three snippets below:

&print_page_start;
if($query->param('submitted')) {
   $error_message = "";
   &validate_form;
   if($error_message eq "") {
    &submit_form_values;
   }
   else {

      print "<form><tr><td colspan=2 bgcolor=#FFFFFF><font face=Arial 
+size=2 color=#FF0000>
    <br><b>\n" . $error_message . "</b></td></tr></form>\n";
   }
}
else {
   &set_initial_values;
   &print_form;
}
&print_page_end;
[download]

or

sub set_initial_values {
   $firstname = $query->param('firstname');
   $lastname = $query->param('lastname');
   $email = $query->param('email');
   $phone = $query->param('phone');
   $dob = $query->param('dob');
   $workstation = $query->param('workstation');
   $username = $query->param('username');
   $password = $query->param('password');
   $passagain = $query->param('passagain');
}
[download]

or

# the important part of submit form
sub print_form {
    print "<form action=register.cgi method=post>\n";
    print "<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"submitted\" value=\"yes\" />\
+n";
    print "<tr><td colspan=2 bgcolor=#FFFFFF><font face=Arial size=2 c
+olor=#000000>
    <br>First Name</font></td><td bgcolor=#FFFFFF><input type=\"text\"
+ name=\"$firstname\" size=25 maxlength=20 />
    </td></tr> \n";
}
[download]