I always use strict, -w and fatalsToBrowser when developing, but today this caused me a huge headache in a simple script (with no syntax errors) that merely reads a file, formats the contents, and displays the html.

It runs fine from the command line (with a few uninitialized value warnings) and could save the output with

perl foo.pl > foo.html
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but it would just whirl and give no output via CGI. I found that the code looks and behaves perfectly via CGI unless both -w and fatalsToBrowser are enabled! Shut either one off (leaving the other on) and it works fine.

I found a certain loop in the program that seems to cause this by throwing pairs of =cut around, but the loop seems mundane and similar to the others.

Is this odd interplay between -w and fatalsToBrowser documented?

Update: I said i'd node the entire script to craft in a day or two but am finding it difficult to abstract a simplified example. So i'll just suggest that if your error-free cgi script mysteriously hangs, turning off either -w or fatalsToBrowser may help.

dws - Try this for a good html ™:

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