They are not the same thing, though.

select * from dept; select * from emp;
+--------+----------+
| deptID | name     |
+--------+----------+
|      1 | pers     |
|      2 | sales    |
|      3 | research |
+--------+----------+

+-------+-------+--------+
| empID | name  | deptID |
+-------+-------+--------+
|     1 | John  |      1 |
|     2 | Fred  |      2 |
|     3 | Susan |      2 |
+-------+-------+--------+

select distinct dept.deptID, emp.deptID 
    from dept left join emp using(deptID);
+--------+--------+
| deptID | deptID |
+--------+--------+
|      1 |      1 |
|      2 |      2 |
|      3 |   NULL |
+--------+--------+
[download]

Given these tables, the Perl code to handle them could be:

my $query = qq{select distinct dept.deptID, emp.deptID 
    from dept left join emp using(deptID)};

my $sth = $dbh->prepare($query);

$sth->execute();
print "--- names\n";
print join ", ", @{$sth->{NAME}};

print "\n--- fetchrow_hashref\n";
my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref();
print "$_ \t" for keys %$row;
print "\n";
$sth->finish();

__OUTPUT__

--- names
deptID, deptID
--- fetchrow_hashref
deptID
[download]

Notice that $sth->{NAME}, despite the double names, returns the correct result. fetchrow_hashref, instead, misses one column altogether.

Thanks cchampion,

Cool, didn't know that... hmmm, /me "thinks have to go redo some code now". I've been working on a bit of code with a friend to 'clone' an SQL table row, you've just given me a couple of very valuable ideas for improvement... thanks again!

barrd

my $sql = "SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE foo = bar";
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$sth->execute() || die $DBI::errstr;

my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref;
my %cols = %$row;

# Print the field names
print join(', ', sort keys %cols);

# Print corresponding values
print join(', ', map { defined $cols{$_} ? $dbh->quote($cols{$_}) : 'N
+ULL' } sort keys %cols);
[download]

Only posted as a guideline...
barrd