I assume by my xlsfile = "table.xls"; you really mean my $xlsfile = "table.xls";. In that case it ought to work. Also, unless your server-side xls file is really a text file of some kind, you should not read it using @fileholder = <DLFILE>; because that will split it on newlines, which could do funny things if it's a binary file.

Update: The correct code for that is

local $/;
binmode DLFILE;
my $fileholder = <DLFILE>;
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Putting the data in a scalar instead of an array so it's not split in arbitrary places.