How to run cgi scripts in a simple perl web server - perl

Question

For an upcoming school project I need to implement a simple web server, It is from the book "Net Programming with Perl". I am trying to get my head around it all as it is all new to me. For now, all I want to do is have a cgi script run as the home page.
I need to get the code to run from the Web.pm script that comes with the webserver (chapter 15 of the book).
I can get it to serve the cgi file as the home page, but it just show the code. I have tried numerous things and the closest I got was the html that the script is supposed to generate was displayed in the command line window that was running the web server but the server output the message from the not_found subroutine.
Here is the beginning of the Web.pm code with the handle_connection and lookup_file subroutines (straight from the book) the subroutines that I have left our are:
invalid_request, redirect and not_found
package Web;
use strict;
use vars '#ISA','#EXPORT';
use IO::File;
use CGI;
require Exporter;
#ISA = 'Exporter';
#EXPORT = qw(handle_connection docroot);
# set to your home directory
my $DOCUMENT_ROOT = '.';
my $CRLF = "\015\012";
###############################
sub docroot {
$DOCUMENT_ROOT = shift if #_;
return $DOCUMENT_ROOT;
}
###############################
# Outline of Handle_Connection()
# Set the socket handle supplied as a parameter
# Set the standard end-of-line character for HTTP messages
# Read the contents from the socket handle into a request variable
# SECTION TO CHECK FOR ERRORS
# Check to make sure the main request line has the right string format. Call invalid_request() otherwise. Set $method to GET or HEAD, and $url to the supplied URL
# Call lookup_file() to find the specified $url in the file system. Call not_found() if lookup_file() fails
# If the type of 'file' return from lookup_file() is actually a directory, call redirect()
# Print the status line and the headers for the response to the socket handle (ie. to the client)
# If the HTTP method is “GET”, print the file requested in the URL to the socket handle (ie. to the client)
sub handle_connection {
my $c = shift; # socket
my ($fh,$type,$length,$url,$method);
local $/ = "$CRLF$CRLF"; # set end-of-line character
my $request = <$c>; # read the request header
print $request; # print request to the command line
# error checking
return invalid_request($c)
unless ($method,$url) = $request =~ m!^(GET|HEAD) (/.*) HTTP/1\.[01]!;
return not_found($c) unless ($fh,$type,$length) = lookup_file($url);
return redirect($c,"$url/") if $type eq 'directory';
# print the header to socket
print $c "HTTP/1.0 200 OK$CRLF";
print $c "Content-length: $length$CRLF";
print $c "Content-type: $type$CRLF";
print $c $CRLF;
return unless $method eq 'GET';
# print the content to socket
my $buffer;
while ( read($fh,$buffer,1024) ) {
print $c $buffer;
}
close $fh;
}
The cgi file is as follows
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# from http://perl.about.com/od/cgiweb/a/perlcgipm.htm
use CGI qw/:standard/;
print header,
start_html('Hello World'),
h1('CGI.pm is simple.'),
end_html;
The cgi works fine on Apache.
I believe I need to make a system call, but all of my efforts have been unsuccessful.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.