And yes, you can do any of the things you mentioned. Probably the simplest is to just use space separate - users can enter as many numbers as they want, separated by one or more blank spaces or newlines. Then in your perl script, you can just use /\s+/ to gather the input.

Thank you for your replies... I admit it I am a CGI rookie here.... I need a snipet or 2 to see what you are saying. If I show you what I have for the current code to accept the <input type text> entries. Could you suggest the best method to read a textarea instead of multiple text fields. Feel free to alter this code . Thank you in advance

#!/usr/bin/perl

if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'POST') {
    read(STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
    @pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
    foreach $pair (@pairs) {
       ($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);
       $value =~ tr/+/ /;
       $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;

     $FORM{$name} = $value;
    }
   &process;
} 

#The following displays barcode

sub process {
($name =  $FORM{name});
[download]

more html & print script would be below here Once again I thank you gc

GAH! Stop right now. Go get CGI and use it. I really mean it, you really should not be using code like what you are doing. Nothing we say about your particular issue will be as important as using the CGI.pm module. Do that first, then come back and ask again.

update to give an example

#!perl -w
use strict;
use CGI qw(:all);
my $FORM = param->Vars;
my $textarea = $FORM{"text_area_field_name"};
my @numbers = split /\s+/, $textarea.
[download]

(When I said "go get CGI.pm" I was speaking metaphorically, you don't actually need to "get" anything, it comes with perl.

If the values need to be "keyed" in some way (e.g. they need to be submitted in a particular order, or each value needs a label to identify what it's for), and/or if any single value can contain a space, then you'll need to work out a convention that will keep the input properly organized and still be easy for users to grasp and adhere to.

If you don't get what you're after, post some code -- that makes it easier and more fun for us.

Thank you for your replies... I want a simple textarea where the users can paste in many serial numbers (either in a column or row with a space/s sepating them). They click submit and the CGI takes each entry as a separate entity instead of one long one. I admit it I am a CGI rookie here.... I need a snipet or 2 to see what you are saying. If I show you what I have for the current code to accept the <input type text> entries. Could you suggest the best method to read a textarea instead of multiple text fields. Feel free to alter this code . Thank you in advance

#!/usr/bin/perl

if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'POST') {
    read(STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
    @pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
    foreach $pair (@pairs) {
       ($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);
       $value =~ tr/+/ /;
       $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;

     $FORM{$name} = $value;
    }
   &process;
} 

#The following displays barcode

sub process {
($name =  $FORM{name});
[download]

more html & print script would be below here Once again I thank you gc