Thanks Kwaping, Following your scheme instead of referencing the Create.html like so: <P><A HREF="Admin_fr_create.htm" NAME="fr_body"><B>Create a New Account</B></A></P> I'd do something like create an "Admin_create.cgi" and encapsulate the Javascript and HTML within? I've been looking at PHP, Server Side Includes, Embed Perl and I'm a little overwhelmed. Using your advise, is there an example in the CGI Programming with Perl, the Camel or Cookbook?

Here's a very small example of the method I described.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use CGI ();
my $cgi = CGI->new();

my $infile = '/path/to/file.html';

open my ($fh), '<', $infile or die "Couldn't open $infile! $!";
read $fh, my ($html), -s $infile or die "Couldn't read $infile! $!";
close $fh or die "Couldn't close $infile! $!";

my $generated_password = function_to_generate_password();

$html =~ s/some_special_target_in_your_html_file/$generated_password/s
+gi;

print $cgi->header();
print $html;
[download]

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

---
It's all fine and dandy until someone has to look at the code.

print '<input type="textfield" value="' . $my_password . '" name="passwordfield"'/>

It is type "text", not "textfield" (although as "text" is the default, browsers will tend to be able to error correct).

In Appendix C XHTML you need a space before the "/", but you've added the end of the tag outside of the string anyway.

print qq{<input type="text" value="$my_password" name="passwordfield" />};

I'd suggest sticking to HTML 4.01 (which has much better browser support), and using a templating language rather than printing out from the Perl script directly.

You are of course entirely right on all accounts. I have to make a note to myself not to answer questions before having had my second cup of strong tea (obviously one cup is not enough anymore).

CountZero

"If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

Thanks CountZero. What's tripping me up is how to preload the generated password into the form field.

Well, it all depends on what you have.

for instance -- if you have SSI (server side includes), you can just do something like:

<input name='password' value='<!--#include virtual='/cgi/random_password' -->'>

Another option is to use the whole 'AJAX' concept -- JavaScript to make a call back to the server to ask for a new password, and place it into the field. (of course, then you have a javascript dependancy, and you might as well just do the randomization in JavaScript

Or, there's the bit that's already been suggested, and just have a CGI to spit out the form. I typically go with this approach, and use the same CGI that generates the backend and initial form, so that I can do data validation, and then re-populate the form, marking any problems.

Sorry, I misunderstood your question.

You will have to write a (CGI-)script that dynamically generates the webpage on which is your form. CGI.pm is the archetypical module to do this, but there are many other solutions. Ovid's CGI-course (esp. lesson four and lesson six] will give you a lot of valuable pointers. Personally I tend to use now a templating solution (Template Toolkit) for anything but the most trivial applications, but YMMV.

CountZero

"If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law