MySQL and Perl for the Web

Product Registration

Registration applications serve many purposes. You can use them to allow people to register products they have purchased, sign up for conferences, request a catalog, add themselves to a mailing list, and so forth. The obvious advantage over paper forms for you when you receive a registration from someone is that you needn’t re-key the information to get it into your database—the Web application inserts it for you. An advantage for users is instant transmission of their registration information without having to dig up a stamp or put the registration form in the mail.

In this section, we’ll write a script, prod_reg.pl, that collects product registrations over the Web. Generally, this kind of registration form has, at a minimum, ...