Giving Javascript code access to Perl variables

In a .CGI file, I'd like to include some Javascript code (which will be
written to the output file sent to the client's browser), which will
access Perl variables that were set in the same CGI file.

It seems to work in some cases. For example, I have a CGI file that
includes this code:

   #!/usr/local/bin/perl
   
   ... Perl code ...

   $loopcount = 4;
   
   ... more Perl code ...
   
   print << "ENDOFPAGE";
   
   ... HTML code ...
   
   <script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">
   
   for (i=0; i<$loopcount; i++) {
      document.write ("Hello world<br>")
   }
   
   </script>
   
   ... more HTML ...
   
   ENDOFPAGE


When this page is displayed in the browser, you see:

Hello world
Hello world
Hello world
Hello world

So clearly the Javascript code recognizes the Perl variable $loopcount.

Can you do this with Perl array values, too? So far I haven't had any
success. Can anyone recommend a good site (or book) that addresses this
issue?

Here's my reason: I'm using Javascript to validate an HTML form, and
I want it to be done on the client side. This works fine for checking
invalid types of input (eg, numbers where letters should go, etc), but
I also would like to make sure that what is being typed into a text
input field is not a duplicate of something I already have stored in
a database.

Since I can access the database from my Perl script and store the values
in a Perl array variable, I'm thinking I could then download the array
to the client, so that the Javascript code can compare typed input with
values in the array. Since I was able to download the value "4" in the
Perl variable $loopcount, shouldn't I be able to download an array of
values to the client?

(By the way, this is a *very tiny* array of database values. If it
involved a large amount of data, I would check for duplicates on the
server, after the form was submitted, since I imagine the time it
would take to download all that data to the browser would undermine
any performance savings you get by doing client-side checking.)

Hope this makes sense. Maybe I should post this to a Javascript group
as well, but I'm hoping that some of you might be familiar with both
languages and can advise me.

Thanks!

J. Wermont


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