I'm not sure what you mean.  { row => ["row", "row", "row", "your boat"]  } looks like the "right" answer to me... What were you expecting?

That line is generated by the workaround

This is Vars output

  { "row[]" => "row\0row\0row\0your boat" },
[download]

And this is what your module does with vars output

 { row => ["row\0row\0row\0your boat"] },
[download]

This is the bug, it forgot to split on \0, because Vars joins on \0

or better still it should simply accept a CGI.pm compatible object (one with param method, whether its CGI/CGI::Simple/CGI::Lite.....) and use the Vars workaround on it

Do you get it now?