But you don't have to use CGI::Cookie as CGI.pm has the following line of code in its cookie function.

require CGI::Cookie;
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Is that "clever module design"?

Oh, and it's "Perl", not "PERL".

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

The poster asked about mod_perl, so I'll add this:
If you ARE using mod_perl, then in the mod_perl startup script, you'll want to include both 'use CGI' and 'use CGI::Cookie', as the cookie module does not seem to get included until runtime (after child processes are forked) even when doing 'use CGI qw(-compile :all);'.

I tried not including CGI::Cookie and only haveing use CGI.

Unforunately this did not work.

It seems you have to include both.

That does not seem correct, I ran this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -l -w
use strict;
use CGI qw(:all);

print for keys %INC;
my $c = cookie('bob');
print "--------";
print for keys %INC;
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And got these results:

$ ./tst | grep "^[C-]"
Carp.pm
CGI/Util.pm
CGI.pm
--------
Carp.pm
CGI/Util.pm
CGI/Cookie.pm
CGI.pm
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So using just 'CGI' SHOULD work and load the CGI::Cookie module when you call the cookie function.

Fair enough. That is clever module design. I suspect that it's also common module design, but it's not something that a beginner, as the poster indicated s/he was, would think about. In addition, it's listed among the common mistakes someone from C++ would make coming to PERL(!). It's certainly not what I thought about when I first started working on modules.

And as long as you understood what I was talking about, it could've been peRl, Per1, or PerL. *grins* I don't want to start a flamewar, but that did seem a little nitpicky.