CGI Querystrings

How do I request Querystring in CGI (eg I want to get the string 'thedata' from www.website.com/test.pl?thedata=bob)

by calling this sub below, when the script is first executed it will place any querys into an array.
ie.. for your example it would be,

Code:

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parse_form;
$thedata = $input{'thedata'};

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#ie.. thedata would equal bob

(the parse form sub that is called,

Code:

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sub parse_form {
  read(STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
  if (length($buffer) < 5) {
        $buffer = $ENV{QUERY_STRING};
    }
  @pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
  foreach $pair (@pairs) {
      ($name, $value) = split(/=/, $pair);

      $value =~ tr/+/ /;
      $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;

      $input{$name} = $value;
  }
}

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