CGI, Cookies and logging in

Hello,
Just found your forum and thought I might take a look. I am trying to hack (good sense) an existing cgi program written in PERL to allow a log on screen. My problem is the program is a links program which uses the query string in the url when someone clicks on a category. SO what happens is my hack simply returns to itself and asks the user to log back in. So I am now using cookies which works great (I have them turned on) except if the user simply hits the refresh button they are allowed access. I have incorporated the hack to use another programs data file so .htaccess will not work because of the way the data is written to the other file.

To see what I mean you can try it out for yourself here, Cookie test You can use ray and stella for a username and password or simply hit refresh to see my problem.

If your interested in looking at the code you can see it here. Most everything above the sub main is the hack. code

I look forward to hearing any and all ideas.

Ray

[This message has been edited by Ray Goniea (edited 27 November 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Ray Goniea (edited 27 November 1999).]