$fh = to_filehandle($initializer) if $initializer;

    # set charset to the safe ISO-8859-1
    $self->charset('ISO-8859-1');

  METHOD: {

      # avoid unreasonably large postings
      if (($POST_MAX > 0) && ($content_length > $POST_MAX)) {
	# quietly read and discard the post
	  my $buffer;
          my $tmplength = $content_length;
          while($tmplength > 0) {
                 my $maxbuffer = ($tmplength < 10000)?$tmplength:10000;
                 my $bytesread = $MOD_PERL ? $self->r->read($buffer,$maxbuffer) : read(STDIN,$buffer,$maxbuffer);

                 $tmplength -= $bytesread;
          }
          $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;
	  }

          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 = $self->r->args;
	  } else {
	      $query_string = $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'} if defined $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'};
	      $query_string ||= $ENV{'REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING'} if defined $ENV{'REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING'};
	  }
	  last METHOD;
      }

      if ($meth eq 'POST') {
	  $self->read_from_client(\$query_string,$content_length,0)
	      if $content_length > 0;