Perl Help needed urgently

still doesnt work :-(

its not a syntax error. its something fundamental that I just don't understand

Well, if you run it from the command line, you do gets lots of useful info (warnings, that will give you an internal server error)

[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Useless use of private variable in void context at c09ex5.cgi line 59.
Content-type: text/html

[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at c09ex5.cgi line 38.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at c09ex5.cgi line 39.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at c09ex5.cgi line 40.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at c09ex5.cgi line 41.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at c09ex5.cgi line 42.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at c09ex5.cgi line 43.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at c09ex5.cgi line 45.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at c09ex5.cgi line 45.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in transliteration (tr///) at c09ex5.cgi line 47.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in transliteration (tr///) at c09ex5.cgi line 48.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in string eq at c09ex5.cgi line 24.
[Wed Oct 28 18:45:51 2009] c09ex5.cgi: Use of uninitialized value in string eq at c09ex5.cgi line 24.

Simplistically, you could comment the

use warnings;

line to make it work, but that's a little like turning up the stereo in your car to drown out the clunking noises coming from the engine.

Most of the warnings are produced by not having any input when running from the command line, so they can be ignored.   The critical warning (and the one producing the internal server error) is:

c09ex5.cgi: Useless use of private variable in void context at c09ex5.cgi line 59.

as this comes before the HTTP header.

To fix this, you need to change

   $product{$code} = $name, $price;

to

   $product{$code} = "$name, $price";

I also note that you should learn to not use global variables.

Thanks, but I changed that and I am still getting a server error. This is what I hate with Perl, just no help with the server errors. Any other ideas?

If you have made the  corrections so that it runs properly from the command line,
then it may be a server issue.
Are you able to run a simple perl script contai ning only

#!/usr/bin/perl
#c09ex5.cgi - saves data to and removes data from a database
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";


if not, have you checked the basic configuration issues listed in
http://www.perl.org/troubleshooting_CGI.html

Now, I am just getting a blank page. the server error was because I needed to change to upload in ASCII mode.

On line 48, you have:
    exit;
So, once your program gets to there, it will exit.

I have changed some things around and at least now I am getting some helpful warnings. The new code is below and the error message I am getting is:

Error opening c09ex5. Permission denied, stopped at /c09ex5.cgi line 50

Which is odd because the permissions is set to 666 which is correct. Please help me anyone. Thanks!

#!/usr/bin/perl
#c09ex5.cgi - saves data to and removes data from a database
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
use CGI qw(:standard);
use SDBM_File;
use Fcntl;
use strict;
use CGI::Carp qw(warningsToBrowser fatalsToBrowser);
 
#declare variables
my ($codes, $names, $prices, $button);
 
#assign values to variables
$codes = param('Code');
$names = param('Name');
$prices = param('Price');
$button = param('Button');
 
($codes, $names, $prices) = format_vars();
if ($button eq "Save") {
      add();
}
elsif ($button eq "Delete") {
      remove();
}
 
exit;
 
#*****user-defined functions*****
sub format_vars {
      $codes =~ s/^ +//;
      $codes =~ s/ +$//;
      $codes =~ tr/a-z/A-Z/;
      $codes =~ tr/ //d;
      $names =~ s/^ +//;
      $names =~ s/ +$//;
      $names =~ tr/ //d;
      $names = uc($names);
      $prices =~ s/^ +//;
      $prices =~ s/ +$//;      
      $prices =~ tr/ //d;
      $prices =~ tr/$//d;
}
 
sub add {
      #declare variables
      my %candles;
      
      #open database, format and add record, close database
      tie(%candles, "SDBM_File", "c09ex5", O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0666)
            or die "Error opening c09ex5. $!, stopped";
      format_vars();
      $candles{$codes} = "$names,$prices";
      untie(%candles);
 
      #create web page      
      print "<HTML>\n";
      print "<HEAD><TITLE>Candles Unlimited</TITLE></HEAD>\n";
      print "<BODY>\n";
      print "<FONT SIZE=4>Thank you, the following product has been added.<BR>\n";
      print "Candle: $codes $names $prices</FONT>\n";
      print "</BODY></HTML>\n";
      } #end add
 
      sub remove {
      #declare variables
      my (%candles, $msg);
 
      #open database
      tie(%candles, "SDBM_File", "c09ex5", O_RDWR, 0)
            or die "Error opening c09ex5. $!, stopped";
      format_vars();
      #determine if the product is listed
      if (exists($candles{$codes})) {
            delete($candles{$codes});
            $msg = "The candle $codes $names $prices has been removed.";
              
      }
      else {
      $msg = "The product you entered is not in the database";
      }
      #close database
      untie(%candles);
      
      #create web page
      print "<HTML>\n";
      print "<HEAD><TITLE>Candles Unlimited</TITLE></HEAD>\n";
      print "<BODY>\n";      
      print "<FONT SIZE=4>$msg</FONT>\n";
      print "</BODY></HTML>\n";      
      } #end remove
                                              

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Does the file exist?  The 0666 permissions here are used when creating the file.  If the file does not already exist, then the webserver (user running this script) needs write access to the directory.  Does this user have write access to the directory?

You also don't specify the directory when you name the file.  When the webserver executes this file, you have no guarantees as to what the current directory is.  Specify the full absolute path to the file.

I fixed this and still the same. Yes, I have write permissions to the area. I feel very helpless right now :-)