my $name = param('name') || ''; if(defined $name) { # if its valid , HTMLescape it and print it # otherwise tell them they did bad :) } else { # ask them for theri name }
....definitely the better way to handle it, although you don't need the || unless you want a default value. Setting it as empty is still a value, so you potentially could have empty values in your database. if (defined($name)) would be better, but can be rather cumbersome. -- Anthony Ettinger Signature: http://chovy.dyndns.org/hcard.html -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://learn.perl.org/> <http://learn.perl.org/first-response>