I appreciate any comment or suggestion...

I use ajax/php/mysql quite a bit, and it works great. I am now working
in a different configuration, where there is no php and mysql installed,
if I want to use ajax, I have to make use of perl on the web server.

Herein my question, how do you make perl return data instead of a web
page? Apparently the web server, whatever it is, called perl per my
instruction but the data returned by the server is a web page. All I
want perl to return data to my javascript so I can process the data.

If the data returned is a web page, the javascript has no way to get its
hand on the data.

Am I doing something wrong? Or I am not doing it right?

Please comment. Thank you.