The Perl DBI module provides a generic interface
for database access. You can write a DBI script that works with many
different database engines without change. To use DBI, you must
install the DBI module, as well as a DataBase
Driver (DBD) module for each type of server you want to access. For
MySQL, this driver is the DBD::mysql module.
Perl DBI is the recommended Perl interface. It replaces an older
interface called mysqlperl, which should be
considered obsolete.
Installation instructions for Perl DBI support are given in Section 2.15, “Perl Installation Notes”.
DBI information is available at the command line, online, or in printed form:
Once you have the
DBIandDBD::mysqlmodules installed, you can get information about them at the command line with theperldoccommand:shell>
perldoc DBIshell>perldoc DBI::FAQshell>perldoc DBD::mysqlYou can also use
pod2man,pod2html, and so forth to translate this information into other formats.For online information about Perl DBI, visit the DBI Web site, http://dbi.perl.org/. That site hosts a general DBI mailing list. Oracle Corporation hosts a list specifically about
DBD::mysql; see Section 1.6.1, “MySQL Mailing Lists”.For printed information, the official DBI book is Programming the Perl DBI (Alligator Descartes and Tim Bunce, O'Reilly & Associates, 2000). Information about the book is available at the DBI Web site, http://dbi.perl.org/.
For information that focuses specifically on using DBI with MySQL, see MySQL and Perl for the Web (Paul DuBois, New Riders, 2001). This book's Web site is http://www.kitebird.com/mysql-perl/.