Check out HTML::FillInForm for populating form fields without needing to use CGI.pm to generate the HTML. I use it very successfully with CGI::Application, HTML::Template and Data::FormValidator. A typical C::A runmode for me looks like the following:

sub edit_form {
  my $self = shift;
  my $q    = $self->query();

  # load the HTML::Template object
  my $template = $self->load_tmpl('FormTemplate.tmpl') 
       || die "Can't find template FormTemplate.tmpl";

  if ($q->param('first_name')) {
    # The user has filled in the form, so we 
    # check the values and update the database 
    # if everything is OK
    my %form_data = $q->Vars;
    my %form_profile = (
                    required => [qw(first_name last_name)],
                    optional => [qw(email)],
                    constraints => {
                                    email => 'email',
                    },
                    filters => [ 'trim' ],
    );
    my ($valid, $missing, $invalid, $unknown) = Data::FormValidator->v
+alidate(\%form_data, \%form_profile);
    if (@$missing || @$invalid) {
      # There were problems with the form
      my @errors;
      push @errors, map { { 'missing_'.$_ => 1 } } @$missing;
      push @errors, map { { 'invalid_'.$_ => 1 } } @$invalid;
      $template->param(errors => \@errors);
    } else {
      # Everything looks good, so update the database
      eval {
        ### Do some database stuff here
        My::DB::User->create($valid);
      };
      if ($@) {
        $template->param(errors => [ { failed_on_update => 1} ]);
      } else {
        # The database was updated successfully
        # so display a success page
        $template->param(database_updated => 1);
      }
    }
  }

  return $self->fillinform(\$template->output());
}

sub fillinform {
  my $self = shift;
  my $html = shift; # ref to string of HTML

  my $fif = new HTML::FillInForm;
  return $fif->fill(scalarref => $html,
                    fobject   => $self->query);

}
[download]

And the template would have the following fields in it:

<TMPL_INCLUDE NAME="../header.tmpl">

<h2>Registration Form</h2>

<TMPL_IF errors>
<h4 class="error_hdr">There was a problem processing your request</h4>
<ul>
<TMPL_LOOP errors>
 <li class="error">
  <TMPL_IF invalid_email>The email address you entered does not look l
+ike a valid email address</TMPL_IF>
  <TMPL_IF missing_firstname>You are required to provide your first na
+me</TMPL_IF>
  <TMPL_IF missing_lastname>You are required to provide your last name
+</TMPL_IF>
  <TMPL_IF failed_on_create>Error:  Failed to create the new user in t
+he database.</TMPL_IF>
 </li>
</TMPL_LOOP>
</ul>
</TMPL_IF>

First Name: <input type="text" name="first_name" size="32" maxlength="
+72"><br />
Last Name:  <input type="text" name="last_name"  size="32" maxlength="
+72"><br />
email:      <input type="text" name="email"      size="32" maxlength="
+255"><br />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit"><input type="reset" 
+ name="reset"  value="Reset"><br />

<TMPL_INCLUDE NAME="../footer.tmpl">
[download]

CGI::Application keeps my code structured nicely, HTML::Template allows me to separate design from code (including the content of error messages intended for the end-user), Data::FormValidator does most of the input field checking, and HTML::FillInForm gives me sticky form fields. And I usually top it off with Class::DBI for the database interface.

This turned out to be a bit longer than I intended, but hopefully someone finds it useful (or someone points out where I can improve things :).

Cheers

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