[thelist] Perl problem and question

[CDitty]

Hello all.

Messing around with perl and I have noticed a few little quirks and 
problems.  Perhaps it is just me learning it and I am missing something.

I have noticed that perl is not as user friendly (function wise) as say 
PHP.  I have some books that are approx 1 years old.  As I am getting into 
perl, I am constantly looking for some perl functions that are similar to 
the ones that php uses.  Specifically right now, I am looking for ones for 
dates and arrays.  In php, there is almost a function for everything, for 
perl, you have to write your own functions.  Really tough for 
beginners.   If I am wrong, someone please correct me and please point me 
to some good resources.

Anyhow, I seem to be having a problem with dates.
My server date shows the correct date, but in perl, I am a month off.  This 
is the code I am using to get the date/time.
($second,$minute,$hour,$month_day,$month,$year) = (localtime)[0,1,2,3,4,5];
and it is returning 07/04/2001 17:17:6.

Also, I am doing a form submit within this script.  After the form is 
submitted, the information submitted is missing.  I am only submitting one 
field at this time and it is coming across as null.  Is there some special 
process I need to do before I can handle the submitted information?  I am 
submitting the variable email and referencing it on the next page as $email.

Sorry for a long winded email.  Any information is appreciated.

Thanks

Chris