Why do I get a blank page from my Perl CGI script?

Posted by Jason on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Jason
Published on 2010-05-01T20:34:26Z Indexed on 2010/05/02 19:37 UTC
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The user enters a product code, price and name using a form. The script then either adds it to the database or deletes it from the database. If the user is trying to delete a product that is not in the database they get a error message. Upon successful adding or deleting they also get a message. However, when I test it I just get a blank page. Perl doesnt come up with any warnings, syntax errors or anything; says everything is fine, but I still just get a blank page.

The script:

    #!/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;

#declare variables
my ($code, $name, $price, $button, $codes, $names, $prices);


#assign values to variables
$code = param('Code');
$name = param('Name');
$price = param('Price');
$button = param('Button');

($code, $name, $price) = format_input();
($codes, $names, $prices) = ($code, $name, $price);

if ($button eq "Save") {
      add();
}
elsif ($button eq "Delete") {
      remove();
}
exit;


sub format_input {
         $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 variable
   my %candles;

 #open database, format and add record, close database
     tie(%candles, "SDBM_File", "candlelist", O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0666)
          or die "Error opening candlelist. $!, 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);

 tie(%candles, "SDBM_File", "candlelist", O_RDWR, 0)
          or die "Error opening candlelist. $!, 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 "<H1>Candles Unlimited</H1>\n";
print "$msg\n";
print "</BODY></HTML>\n";
}

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