something like:

$cookie = join "\0", %hash;
$cookie =~ s/(\W)/'%'.sprintf("%02lx",ord($1))/ge;
#... print cookie ...

#read cookie back to hash...
$cookie =~ s/%([a-fA-F\d][a-fA-F\d])/chr(hex($1))/ge;
%hash = split "\0", $cookie;
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Appears you are looking for a solution like this (from the CGI::Cookie perldoc)

Within a CGI script you can send a cookie to the browser by creating
one or more Set-Cookie: fields in the HTTP header.  Here is a typical
sequence:

my $c = new CGI::Cookie(-name    =>  'foo',
                        -value   =>  ['bar','baz'],
                        -expires =>  '+3M');

print "Set-Cookie: $c\n";
print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";

To send more than one cookie, create several Set-Cookie: fields.
Alternatively, you may concatenate the cookies together with "; " and
send them in one field.
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Just do the Set-Cookie in your loop and the header after...

The problem is is that the cookie values must not be concatenated, they have to be sent as seperate cookies (project rules). ..I also have to use the CGI::cookie module (hence no use of set-cookie)

But as other have send, there's a practical limit to cookies. It's better to only send one piece of data across and use a server at your end to extract all the data that you are trying to send now. So you'd create a unique key, write to some database all the info you're trying to save, then send off the cookie with just that key value. Upon getting back that key value by a cookie, it's a lot easier to get that data.

THis seems like the best idea!!! I have tried it however with no success. What did you actually mean by 'may have to use a reference to @cookies' Does anybody know if it is possible to writea cookie with an array $query->header(-cookie=>@cookies);

Use $query->header( -cookie=> \@cookies ); (note the '\', that makes the call use a reference to @cookies as opposed to the variable @cookies itself), instead of what I had initially. Again, it's untested, so it might not work, though I doubt that it won't work this way.

---

Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain

so how about this...

#!/bin/perl

use CGI qw/:standard/;
use CGI::Cookie;
use strict;

my @cookie;
#  do this in a loop....
$cookie[0] = new CGI::Cookie(-name=>'ID',-value=>123456);
$cookie[1] = new CGI::Cookie(-name=>'preferences',
             -value=>{ font => 'Helvetica', size => '12' });

print header(-cookie=>\@cookie);
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Set-Cookie: ID=123456
Set-Cookie: preferences=size&12&font&Helvetica
Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 17:42:01 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
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Ive tried your script aswell. This is what im doing but it just wont put them all in the cookie. $inputs is a hash which contains only 9 instances (not over 4k).

sub set_cookie_value
{
    my ($inputs) = @_;
    
    my @cookies = ();

    my $key;     
    foreach $key (keys %$inputs)
    {    
        $cookie = new CGI::Cookie(-name=>$key, -value=>$inputs->{$key}
+, -expires=>$inputs->{$key}, -path=>'/', -domain=>'', -secure=>0);
        push (@cookies, $cookie);  
    } 
    
    print header( -cookie=>\@cookies );   
    
    print "--$inputs->{'postcode'}--"
}
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Any further ideas?

what is the programs output?

you can determine this by running it from a command line, CGI.pm will prompt you for some input variables (you can also pass them on the command line), like so: (line 1 is executing the script, 2 is the script prompting me for input, 3 is my input. between lines 3 and 4 I hit Ctrl-D, lines 4-7 is the output. in this case 2 cookies.

1 xdev$ perl cook.pl
2 (offline mode: enter name=value pairs on standard input)
3 foo=bar
4 Set-Cookie: ID=123456
5 Set-Cookie: preferences=size&12&font&Helvetica
6 Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 21:01:04 GMT
7 Content-Type: text/html

xdev$
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note the code executed above is the same code posted in the previous node