$Action{formsearch}= \&FormSearch; sub GetParamArray { my ($name, $default) = @_; my @result = $q->param($name); my $result = join(" ", @result); $result = $NewCookie{$name} unless defined($result); # empty strings are defined! $result = $default unless defined($result); return QuoteHtml($result); # you need to unquote anything that can have } sub FormSearch { my $searchstrings = GetParamArray('search',''); DoSearch($searchstrings); }