There are few, if any, pathetic questions (that's a reference to the original title, just in case someone changed it). Here's a short and terribly incomplete answer to your question:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;
use CGI qw/:standard/;

# grab the data
my $tainted_field1 = param( 'field1' ) || '';
my $tainted_field2 = param( 'field2' ) || '';

# untaint the data
my ( $field1 ) = ( $tainted_field1 =~ /^([\w\s]+)$/ );
my ( $field2 ) = ( $tainted_field2 =~ /^([\w\s]+)$/ );

# do as you will...
[download]

I realize that much of what I wrote probably looks like line noise. Here's a stripped down (but less secure) version to give you the basics:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use CGI qw/:standard/;

my $field1 = param( 'field1' );
my $field2 = param( 'field2' );
[download]

I realize that the second version seems a bit easier to use, but it does have some problems. See perlsec for details. I also have an online CGI course that I am writing and it can fill you in on a lot of background. Unfortunately, the section that you will most want (Lesson Four, part two) has not yet been written due to excessive 12 hour work days on my part :)

Cheers,
Ovid

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