Question

Why does this code fail silently? How do I get it to show me exactly what the SQL error is?

$dbh=DBI->connect($db_name,$db_user,$db_pass);

I modified the code to look like this:

$dbh=DBI->connect($db_name,$db_user,$db_pass)
    or die("could not connect to db: $db_name");

Which instead of allowing me to use $dbh unassigned, it will fail as expected, but it does not tell me exactly why it’s failing. The values of $db_name etc, are all set with valid values as far as I can see.

I know the real error (the MySQL server is actually not running) but for future reference, I’d like to see the true error in case I am causing an auth failure for example.

Answer 1

You’re not seeing why the connect fails because you aren’t doing what the DBI show you to do. The error will be in the $DBI::errstr variable:

$dbh = DBI->connect($data_source, $username, $password)
     or die $DBI::errstr;

Ensure you read the documentation for any functions or methods that you want to use. 🙂