IIRC, the /^".*"$/ case is handled by a s!^"!/"! just before the if, which makes it fall under the firse elsif. (This code is unnecessarily byzantine.)

As far as I can tell, the only reason for separate handling of the if clause and the first elsif would be if the second one assigned to section, as you have made it do. However, since the code didn't actually do so, I assume there was a reason... I'm a little handicapped by not knowing what an "ident" is :)

I'll give your patch a try, but I'm guessing that if it works all that it will prove is that there's something wrong in the if (defined $ident) block later in the case of $page being blank.

Update: the patch had no effect on the output. I think that, bad as it is, this section isn't the source of the problem.