Webmaster in a Nutshell, Second Edition

Named Parameters

For most CGI.pm methods, there are two syntax styles. In the “standard” style, the position of the parameters determines how they will be interpreted; for example, parameter 1 is the name the script should assign, parameter 2 is the initial value, etc. For example:

print $query=textfield('username', 'anonymous');

In the “named parameters” style, the parameters can be assigned like a hash, and the order doesn’t matter. For example:

print $query->textfield(-name=>'name', 
                        -default=>'value');

If you want to use named parameters, just call the use_named_parameters method early in the script.

Which syntax style should you use? It depends on how lazy you are and much control you need. Generally, “standard” syntax is faster to type. However, it is also harder to read, and there are many features that are simply not available using standard syntax (such as JavaScript support). In general, we recommend using the “named parameters” syntax for all but the most trivial scripts.