Chapter 7. Writing MySQL Programs Using Perl DBI

This chapter describes how to use the Perl DBI interface to MySQL. It does not discuss DBI philosophy or architecture. For information about those aspects of DBI (particularly in comparison with the C and PHP APIs), see Chapter 5, “Introduction to MySQL Programming.”

The examples discussed here draw on our sample database, sampdb, using the tables created for the grade-keeping project and for the Historical League in Chapter 1, “Getting Started with MySQL and SQL.” To get the most from this chapter, it's best if you know something about Perl. If you don't, you may be able to get along and write your own scripts simply by copying the sample code you see here, but you will probably find a good Perl book a worthwhile investment. One such book is Programming Perl, Third Edition by Wall, Christiansen, and Orwant (O'Reilly, 2000).