THANKS ROY!
You've stated what I meant to say in my wish to force the user to enter only up to some char limit with perl and the code you wrote slips in to my existing "format" of error checking and error (page) generation.

The code you supplied is exactly what I need for ALL of my forms providing customized data input printed to web pages such as listing events and sent by eMail where field lenght needs to be within limits for formatting or spam containment/resistance or to just enforce brevity on users.
Thanks again!
Gratefully,
Mike