CGI.pm - strange difference between CGI.pm version 2.81 and 2.36

From: Joe Floeder (jmfloeder_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 04/29/04 

Date: 29 Apr 2004 10:23:16 -0700

or this could be a difference somewhere else in perl version 5.8
versus 5.4? The question is where am I getting this syntax error? --
the CGI module or perl itself? And why is the newer versions of
perl/CGI.pm not throwing the error.

When using CGI.pm 2.81 in perl 5.8 we could call CGI.pm functions
using a reference to a data structure like so

$row->[4](-name=>$row->[2],-values=>$row->[5],-default=>none)

without receiving a syntax error. We were storing the names of form
input elements in that column of an array or arrays (i.e "textfield",
"radio_group", etc.)

Yet the same script run under CGI 2.36 in perl 5.4 would throw a
syntax error.

We ended up having to "hard code" the function names like so

textfield(-name=>$row->[2],-values=>$row->[5],-default=>none)

and now the script works in both releases of CGI.pm and perl. What is
the newer versions doing that the older versions can not?

Thanks.

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