# avoid unreasonably large postings
      if (($POST_MAX > 0) && ($content_length > $POST_MAX)) {
	  $self->cgi_error("413 Request entity too large");
	  last METHOD;
      }

      # Process multipart postings, but only if the initializer is
      # not defined.
      if ($meth eq 'POST'
	  && defined($ENV{'CONTENT_TYPE'})
	  && $ENV{'CONTENT_TYPE'}=~m|^multipart/form-data|
	  && !defined($initializer)
	  ) {
	  my($boundary) = $ENV{'CONTENT_TYPE'} =~ /boundary=\"?([^\";,]+)\"?/;
	  $self->read_multipart($boundary,$content_length);
	  last METHOD;
      } 

      # If initializer is defined, then read parameters
      # from it.
      if (defined($initializer)) {
	  if (UNIVERSAL::isa($initializer,'CGI')) {
	      $query_string = $initializer->query_string;
	      last METHOD;
	  }
	  if (ref($initializer) && ref($initializer) eq 'HASH') {
	      foreach (keys %$initializer) {
		  $self->param('-name'=>$_,'-value'=>$initializer->{$_});
	      }
	      last METHOD;
	  }
	  
	  if (defined($fh) && ($fh ne '')) {
	      while (<$fh>) {
		  chomp;
		  last if /^=/;
		  push(@lines,$_);
	      }
	      # massage back into standard format
	      if ("@lines" =~ /=/) {
		  $query_string=join("&",@lines);
	      } else {
		  $query_string=join("+",@lines);
	      }
	      last METHOD;
	  }

	  # last chance -- treat it as a string
	  $initializer = $$initializer if ref($initializer) eq 'SCALAR';
	  $query_string = $initializer;

	  last METHOD;
      }

      # If method is GET or HEAD, fetch the query from
      # the environment.
      if ($meth=~/^(GET|HEAD)$/) {
	  if ($MOD_PERL) {
	      $query_string = Apache->request->args;
	  } else {
	      $query_string = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'} if defined $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'};
	  }
	  last METHOD;
      }

      if ($meth eq 'POST') {
	  $self->read_from_client(\*STDIN,\$query_string,$content_length,0)
	      if $content_length > 0;
	  # Some people want to have their cake and eat it too!
	  # Uncomment this line to have the contents of the query string
	  # APPENDED to the POST data.
	  # $query_string .= (length($query_string) ? '&' : '') . $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'} if defined $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'};
	  last METHOD;
      }

      # If $meth is not of GET, POST or HEAD, assume we're being debugged offline.
      # Check the command line and then the standard input for data.
      # We use the shellwords package in order to behave the way that
      # UN*X programmers expect.
      $query_string = read_from_cmdline() unless $NO_DEBUG;
  }

    # We now have the query string in hand.  We do slightly
    # different things for keyword lists and parameter lists.
    if (defined $query_string && $query_string) {
	if ($query_string =~ /=/) {
	    $self->parse_params($query_string);
	} else {
	    $self->add_parameter('keywords');
	    $self->{'keywords'} = [$self->parse_keywordlist($query_string)];
	}
    }



# unescape URL-encoded data
sub unescape {
  shift() if ref($_[0]) || (defined $_[1] && $_[0] eq $DefaultClass);
  my $todecode = shift;
  return undef unless defined($todecode);
  $todecode =~ tr/+/ /;       # pluses become spaces
    if ($EBCDIC) {
      $todecode =~ s/%([0-9a-fA-F]{2})/pack("c",$A2E[hex($1)])/ge;
    } else {
      $todecode =~ s/%([0-9a-fA-F]{2})/pack("c",hex($1))/ge;
    }
  return $todecode;
}

# URL-encode data
sub escape {
  shift() if ref($_[0]) || (defined $_[1] && $_[0] eq $DefaultClass);
  my $toencode = shift;
  return undef unless defined($toencode);
  $toencode=~s/([^a-zA-Z0-9_.-])/uc sprintf("%%%02x",ord($1))/eg;
  return $toencode;
}