When it works, I call it with:
www.commercialserver.com/cgi-bin/fileview.pl?2
When it doesn't work, I call it with:
www.myserver.com/perl/fileview.pl?2
You are correct that I'm not terribly clear about the ramifications of mod_perl, but since it seemed that my Apache was unable to access the standard install of perl, I got desperate and "brought it inside" so to speak with mod_perl. It is ENTIRELY possible that I have a config problem with Apache, but I can't find it if it exists :>(
Thanks ...
It sounds like you are running it through mod_perl via Apache::Registry. It will not populate STDIN for you the same way that CGI does. You need to either go back to using CGI, which should work fine but you may need a little help, or switch from grabbing the args yourself to using something like the CGI module.