What is wrong with my Perl script? - html

Question

Probably everything in my opinion!
I basically don't know what I'm doing. I've never written a .cgi file before, but I did write the script basing myself on several tutorials...
One of them is this one...
http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/cgi/processingforms.html
I want a Perl script that will process an html form, collect the user's data and send to email with a return Thank you.html file to user when they hit SUBMIT.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'POST') {
read(STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
#pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
foreach $pair (#pairs) {
($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);
$value =~ tr/+/ /;
$value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
$FORM{$name} = $value;
}
if( $FORM{magazine} ){
$magazine_flag ="ON";
}else{
$magazine_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{internet} ){
$internet_flag ="ON";
}else{
$internet_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{distributor} ){
$distributor_flag ="ON";
}else{
$distributor_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{yes1} ){
$yes1_flag ="ON";
}else{
$yes1_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{no1} ){
$no1_flag ="ON";
}else{
$no1_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{twofifty} ){
$twofifty_flag ="ON";
}else{
$twofifty_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{fivehundred} ){
$fivehundred_flag ="ON";
}else{
$fivehundred_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{thousand} ){
$thousand_flag ="ON";
}else{
$thousand_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{twofivehundred} ){
$twofivehundred_flag ="ON";
}else{
$twofivehundred_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{fivethousand} ){
$fivethousand_flag ="ON";
}else{
$fivethousand_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{tenthousand} ){
$tenthousand_flag ="ON";
}else{
$tenthousand_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{fifteenthousand} ){
$fifteenthousand_flag ="ON";
}else{
$fifteenthousand_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{yes2} ){
$yes2_flag ="ON";
}else{
$yes2_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{no2} ){
$no2_flag ="ON";
}else{
$no2_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{yes3} ){
$yes3_flag ="ON";
}else{
$yes3_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $FORM{no3} ){
$no3_flag ="ON";
}else{
$no3_flag ="OFF";
}
$Magazine-name = $FORM{magazine-name};
$Name = $FORM{name};
$Title = $FORM{title};
$Job = $FORM{job};
$Company = $FORM{company};
$Address = $FORM{address};
$City = $FORM{city};
$State = $FORM{state};
$Zip = $FORM{zip};
$Telephone = $FORM{telephone};
$E-mail = $FORM{e-mail};
open (MESSAGE,"| /usr/sbin/sendmail -t");
print MESSAGE "To: aalmeida\#aemc.com\n";
print MESSAGE "From: " . $Name . ", reader\n";
print MESSAGE "Reply-to: " . $E-mail . "(" . $Name . ")\n";
print MESSAGE "Subject: NECA 2013 Registration to win from $Name \n\n";
print MESSAGE "$Name wrote:\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Where do you look most often for test instrumentation?:\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$magazine_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$magazine-name\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$internet_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$distributor_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$representative_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "I have a need for insulation testing:\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$yes1_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$no1_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "What test voltage is important?:\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$twofifty_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$fivehundred_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$thousand_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$twofivehundred_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$fivethousand_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$tenthousand_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$fifteenthousand_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Is the ability to store test results from the
instrument important?:\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$yes2_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$no2_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Do you plan to purchase within the next 6 months?:\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$yes3_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "$no3_flag\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Name: $FORM{name}\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Title: $FORM{title}\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Job Function: $FORM{job}\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Company: $FORM{company}\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Address: $FORM{address}\n\n";
print MESSAGE "City: $FORM{city}\n\n";
print MESSAGE "State: $FORM{state}\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Zip: $FORM{zip}\n\n";
print MESSAGE "Telephone: $FORM{telephone}\n\n";
print MESSAGE "E-mail: $FORM{e-mail}\n\n";
close (MESSAGE);
exit(0);
When I hit submit from the browser, I get this error:
Software error:
Can't modify subtraction (-) in scalar assignment at \boswinfs05\home\users\web\b465\whl.caadmin\www\HTML-email\SP_ToolKitPROMO_NECA2013\functions\formmailer.cgi line 117, near "};"
Missing right curly or square bracket at \boswinfs05\home\users\web\b465\whl.caadmin\www\HTML-email\SP_ToolKitPROMO_NECA2013\functions\formmailer.cgi line 180, at end of line
syntax error at \boswinfs05\home\users\web\b465\whl.caadmin\www\HTML-email\SP_ToolKitPROMO_NECA2013\functions\formmailer.cgi line 180, at EOF
Execution of \boswinfs05\home\users\web\b465\whl.caadmin\www\HTML-email\SP_ToolKitPROMO_NECA2013\functions\formmailer.cgi aborted due to compilation errors.
For help, please send mail to this site's webmaster, giving this error message and the time and date of the error.
How can I make the script work?
Any insight would be much appreciated or links to more in depth tutorials would also be great.
Thanks!

Answer 1

You are using hyphens in those identifiers.
$Magazine-name = $FORM{magazine-name};
$E-mail = $FORM{e-mail};
Change those to underscores.
Enable syntax highlighting in your editor. That will help you catch such errors quickly even before compiling.

Answer 2

$E-mail and $Magazine-name are not valid variable names. Only letters, numbers, and the underscore characters can be used in a variable name(*). Try $E_mail or $Email.
(*) - without a little symbol table wizardry or other hacks that leave an impression of Perl as a write-only language

Answer 3

Tips:
Always use use strict; use warnings;!
Use the following instead of handling the CGI yourself:
use CGI qw( );
my $cgi = CGI->new();
my $form = $cgi->Vars();
# Use $form->{...} instead of $FORM{...}
if( $form->{magazine} ){
$magazine_flag ="ON";
}else{
$magazine_flag ="OFF";
}
if( $form->{internet} ){
...
could be written as
$form->{$_} = $form->{$_} ? "ON" : "OFF"
for qw(
magazine
internet
...
);