The full path to the original file on the client's computer is of no use to your script running on the server. But the client sent you both the name (relative or full) and the data. Consult the docs of the module you use to extract the CGI parameters (CGI.pm, CGI::Lite, ...) how to read the data. The original file name is just a comment, a suggested name for the file once you read the data and want to store them somewhere. The data are either still in memory or more likely in a temporary file whose name most likely doesn't match that string of characters at all.