push @query_string,  "$p=" . $q->escape( $_ ) for @settings;

I tried replacing that line with the code you gave me, and it looks like 
the original error is gone and replaced by errors further down in the 
program.  I'm not a perl programmer, so I'm afraid I'm at a bit of a loss 
to fix them on my own.  My #! line does point to the correct version of 
perl though.  I replaced the code block starting at line 690 with code you 
gave me (the second for loop is new):

for my $p ( qw/si sbm/ ) {
         my @settings = $q->param($p);
         next unless @settings;
         for my $setting ( @ settings ) {
                 $setting = $q->escape( $setting );
                 push @query_string, "$p=$setting";
         }
     }

I ran perl again and got the following errors:
syntax error at ./swish.cgi line 1306, near "$buffer foreach "
syntax error at ./swish.cgi line 1328, near ""                 : '@$_'\n" 
foreach "
syntax error at ./swish.cgi line 1331, near "}"
Execution of ./swish.cgi aborted due to compilation errors.

My script shows:
1306: push @{$query_match{$layer}{$_}}, $buffer foreach @fields;
1328: print STDERR "                 : '@$_'\n" foreach 
@{$query_match{$layer}{$tag}};
1331: }

This is closing in at the end of the code, so I'm crossing my fingers 
here!  I can't tell you thank you enough for helping me out.
-Kate




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