sorry, jim, i'm just a kindergartner when it comes to perl,
so i'm not sure i can help with any debugging, but i'll try...


>   Name "main::allow_html" used only once:

that was code i just pulled in, but i didn't "allow html",
so, practically, you can throw out that loop altogether...
(but also see the note below.)


>   Name "main::FORM" used only once:
>   possible typo at C:\JIM\Perl\bbunwrap.pl line 18.

that construct is just to split the buffer, so
you don't really need it.  the only variable
of any interest is "theinput", so just strip
"theinput=" off the buffer and you're good.

note that $theinput is then dumped into $thebook.
(but also see the note below.)


>   Use of uninitialized value in read at C:

that command reads the buffer that's submitted
to the script when it's mounted on a website, so
you'll have to rewrite it if you wanna run it offline,
which is what it appears you are trying to do here.

read this note:

what you would do instead (and it nullifies all of
the errors that we've discussed so far, is to open
the text-file on your machine, put it into $thebook,
and proceed to this line:
>   print "content-type: text/html\n\n";


>   Use of uninitialized value $thebook
>   in string eq at C:\JIM\Perl\bbunwrap.pl line 24.

looks like your version of perl wants the variables
to be initialized, so just go ahead and do that...

-bowerbird