[MacPerl] cgi-lib problems

[Dan Smith <dan@www.global-image.com>]

when using mac perl, I receive a namuber of errors within the perl5 
version of cgi-lib.pl
the errors are all # Unrecognized character \   ignored
following the backslash is a number 
(255,003,377,377,377,377,016,244,344,016,244,344,020)

I also received errors of syntax in line 1 for "Joy!"


here is the beginning of cgi-lib.pl which the errors occur within:
#!/usr/lib/perl/perl -- -*- C -*-

# Perl Routines to Manipulate CGI input
# Steven E. Brenner / cgi-lib@pobox.com
# $Id: cgi-lib.pl,v 2.12 1996/06/19 13:46:01 brenner Exp $
#
# Copyright (c) 1996 Steven E. Brenner  
# Unpublished work.
# Permission granted to use and modify this library so long as the
# copyright above is maintained, modifications are documented, and
# credit is given for any use of the library.
#
# Thanks are due to many people for reporting bugs and suggestions
# especially Meng Weng Wong, Maki Watanabe, Bo Frese Rasmussen,
# Andrew Dalke, Mark-Jason Dominus, Dave Dittrich, Jason Mathews

# For more information, see:
#     http://www.bio.cam.ac.uk/cgi-lib/

# $cgi_lib'version = sprintf("%d.%02d", q$Revision: 2.12 $ =~ 
/(\d+)\.(\d+)/);


# Parameters affecting cgi-lib behavior
# User-configurable parameters affecting file upload.
$cgi_lib'maxdata    = 131072;    # maximum bytes to accept via POST - 2^17
$cgi_lib'writefiles =      0;    # directory to which to write files, or
                                 # 0 if files should not be written
$cgi_lib'filepre    = "cgi-lib"; # Prefix of file names, in directory above

# Do not change the following parameters unless you have special reasons
$cgi_lib'bufsize  =  8192;    # default buffer size when reading multipart
$cgi_lib'maxbound =   100;    # maximum boundary length to be encounterd
$cgi_lib'headerout =    0;    # indicates whether the header has been printed


# ReadParse
# Reads in GET or POST data, converts it to unescaped text, and puts
# key/value pairs in %in, using "\0" to separate multiple selections

# Returns >0 if there was input, 0 if there was no input

# undef indicates some failure.

# Now that cgi scripts can be put in the normal file space, it is useful
# to combine both the form and the script in one place.  If no parameters
# are given (i.e., ReadParse returns FALSE), then a form could be output.

# If a reference to a hash is given, then the data will be stored in that
# hash, but the data from $in and @in will become inaccessable.
# If a variable-glob (e.g., *cgi_input) is the first parameter to ReadParse,
# information is stored there, rather than in $in, @in, and %in.
# Second, third, and fourth parameters fill associative arrays analagous to
# %in with data relevant to file uploads. 

# If no method is given, the script will process both command-line arguments
# of the form: name=value and any text that is in $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}
# This is intended to aid debugging and may be changed in future releases

sub ReadParse {
  local (*in) = shift if @_;    # CGI input
  local (*incfn,                # Client's filename (may not be provided)
         *inct,                 # Client's content-type (may not be provided)
         *insfn) = @_;          # Server's filename (for spooled files)
  local ($len, $type, $meth, $errflag, $cmdflag, $perlwarn, $got);

etc etc etc... I wont bother copying the whole script up.

any suggestions?
  Dan Smith
  dan@global-image.com 
  www: tiger.coe.missouri.edu/~robi