If you want to get the dir in which the script lies, use FindBin].

I used to be a fan of FindBin myself, but since I'm here I've discovered thanks to tye's excellent article and subsequent interventions that it is somewhat broken.

If you want to use proper HTML templates, consider using HTML::Template, Template, HTML::Template::Compiled or the like.

Lately, I'm "advertising" our fellow Rhandom's "new" Template::Alloy, because from what I read it seems very cool, and I'm enthusiast. But I realize this may get tiresome on the long run, so I won't do it any more... (Unless there are compellingly good reasons to do so!)

If you want to escape "dangerous" characters, I recommend HTML::Entities.

Well, since you rightly mentioned CGI, it is worth mentioning that it can do that too, sometimes automatically or by explicit (depending on the charset) use of escapeHTML().