Oh my. I'd probably do that differently, especially by using CGI.pm for my form decoding. There's a million different reasons to CGI, the best is that it makes your job much easier!

Here's your code, using CGI.pm:

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

my $q= CGI->new();

if (!$q->param('pass'){
 print_form($q); 
 } else {
 submit_data($q)
}

sub print_form{
 my $q =shift;
 print $q->header().
  $q->start_html().
  $start_form(-method=>'POST',
   -action=>'/cgi-bin/somepage.pl').
  $q->b('Pass:').
  $q->textfield(-name=>'pass').
  $q->br().
  $q->b('Name:').
  $q->textfield(-name=>'name').
  $q->br().
  $q->b('URL:').
  $q->textfield(-name=>'url').
  $q->submit().
  $q->end_form().
  $q->end_html();
}

sub submit_data{
 my $q=shift;
 # No need to go through all that form decoding stuff here. 
 # It's done automatically, and in the Right Way by CGI.pm.
 
 #do stuff with data.
}

[download]

Why is this better? Less typing, for one. Easier to read, too. Plus CGI.pm is very, very good for creating forms and simple HTML (it does a lot more than what I used it for here, obviously!). CGI.pm is also very good for creating tables programatically, e.g. from a database. You can even use CGI to auto-fill your forms, when you validate data from users.

If you're going to be doing more complex HTML in your code, you should look into a templating system that lets you separate your perl scripts from your HTML. A really good one to learn is HTML::Template. It'll seem like a pain at first, but it's worth it in the long run.

Some links:
Use CGI or Die! from Ovid. Really good reading.
Ovid's CGI tutorial.
The CGI.pm docs from Lincoln Stein.
HTML::Template Tutorial at PerlMonth.

Update:The way I REALLY would have done this is with CGI::Application, which I think is like a state machine, and is HTML::Template's (non-)evil twin.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Retrieving Form Data by Hero Zzyzzx
in thread Retrieving Form Data by Monolith-0

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