UBB.Developers Forums Community Development Programming PHP and Server-side Scripting POSTing with a PERL script

I'm stuck, and I know some of the gurus here can help.

What I want is to be able to have a PERL script make an automated post to a UBB forum. I've got it pretty much done, except for setting up the actual HTTP POST command. I've done GETs through a script before, but never a POST. So, my specific questions are:

1. What "pre processing" has to be done to the data before it can be posted? (For example, turning spaces into +'s.) Anyone have a code snippet?
2. How do I actually make the data readable from STDIN on the receiving script? Pipe it? Open a socket and dump it?

Thanks all!