Code for multiple select boxes in perl

You don't state the script or module you are using to obtain the cgi variables. It is likely however that the script has put the multi-part data into a single variable (such as $in{myvar}) and separated them by the '\0' character. If this is the case then you can separate them with the following code.

@params = split ("\0", $in{myvar});

If this is not the case then let me know what cgi library/module you are using.

I'd recommend CGI.pm:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use CGI qw(:standard);
print header;
print start_html('A Simple Example'),
      h1('A Simple Example'),
      start_form,
      checkbox_group(-name=>'words',
                     -values=>['eenie','meenie','minie','moe'],
                     -defaults=>['eenie','minie']),
      p,
      submit,
      end_form,
      hr;

if( param() ){
    print
        "The keywords are: ",em(join(", ",param('words'))),
        hr;
}
print a({href=>'http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/ftp/pub/software/WWW/cgi_docs.html'},'Go to the documentation');