#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#
# Here is a CGI example of using a regexp to parse a query string,
# when you're not sure exactly what will be in the query string
# Put it in you web space, and call it with
# http://host/script?param_1=this&param_2=that&the_other=doesntmatchthemask
# or call it with ?error=HelloWebMaster if you want to fill the error log with garbage
#

use CGI qw( :standard :HTML );
# set slay typos
use strict;

# read in the CGI params
my $object = new CGI();

# print our HTML header
print header(),h1( "params: " );

my $key;
# set our variable mask. This part gets thrown out.
# At makeyourbanner.com, I use more than one pattern,
# so that I can determine the number of text areas and style settings dynamically.
# in CGI programming, this is very handy if you are designing a backend,
# and don't have advanced knowledge of how the front end will call it.
my $mask = "param_";

foreach $key ( $object->param() ) {
        if ( $key =~ /^($mask)(.+)/ ) {
		#found a parameter, print it out
                print "<P>param $2=", $object->param( $key ), "</P>";
        } elsif ( $key =~ /error/i ) {
		#found error flag, print error to the appache logs (you ARE using apache, right?!)
                print STDERR "error: found $key=", $object->param( $key ), " in $0\n";
        }
}