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22.4. MySQL Perl API

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 2.4.20, “Perl Installation Notes”.

DBI information is available at the command line, online, or in printed form:

  • 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, http://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”.

  • 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/.


User Comments

Posted by Elliot Koch on January 4 2005 10:55pm[Delete] [Edit]

When using the DBI/DBD Perl interface routines along with mysql_multi(aka a socket file different from mysql.sock) you should set the perl env variable MYSQL_UNIX_PORT as referenced in your mysql.cnf file. Example:

$ENV{MYSQL_UNIX_PORT} = "/tmp/mysql.sock2";

Posted by jeremiah foster on January 29 2006 4:44pm[Delete] [Edit]

To clarify what Elliot said, there is a new location for the socket connection to MySQL with the new MySQL database version 5. If you are using the newer version of MySQL you need to update your perl scripts to reflect the new location of the MySQL socket.

Your older perl script might give you a warning like this:

DBI connect('sometable','somename',...) failed: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2) at ./mysql_manip.pl line . . .

Which might mean that the perl program cannot find the socket since the socket has moved. Tell your perl script where the new socket is by looking for it in /tmp and insert that information as a variable in your perl script.

Posted by Toby Thain on July 7 2006 3:51pm[Delete] [Edit]

The socket path can also be set using "mysql_socket=" in the $dbh->connect() method.

Posted by Philip Stoev on April 6 2007 6:32pm[Delete] [Edit]

A DBD::mysqlPP driver exists which requires no compilation and no mysql libraries or source code.

http://search.cpan.org/~oyama/DBD-mysqlPP-0.04/

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