I do have a development box, so I can make sure that the syntax is correct and it can compile. I will need to test to see if this solves all my problems (probably not), but thanks for the input.

My biggest problem however is not the Perl errors, but possible mySQL errors. I need to set up a testing environment with MySQL and start playing around, but I have no idea what is going to happen if MySQL has problems. Will MySQL return error codes to the CGI that I can catch, or will it just die?

thanks for everyone's input. the whole thing doesn't seem so impossible anymore.

-Siddartha