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 2.13, “Perl Installation Notes”.
DBI information is available at the command line, online, or in
printed form:
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Once you have the DBI and
DBD::mysql modules installed, you can get
information about them at the command line with the
perldoc command:
shell> perldoc DBI
shell> perldoc DBI::FAQ
shell> perldoc DBD::mysql
You 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,
https://dbi.perl.org/. That site hosts a general
DBI mailing list. MySQL AB hosts a list specifically about
DBD::mysql; see
Section 1.7.1, “MySQL Mailing Lists”.
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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,
https://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
https://www.kitebird.com/mysql-perl/.
