Though it might "feel" simpler to stick to Perl and use DBI, for the database in question the approach of going out to the system is likely the cleanest, safest and fastest.

In a nutshell, what he is trying to do is:

  dbinit my_new_db.db
  dbunload  my_old_db   <<- this creates a file called "reload.sql"
  dbisql my_new_db.db read reload.sql
[download]

throw in some error checking (exit codes, file/directory exists, etc...) and you've got a great rebuild/upgrade mechanism.

I've done exactly this in Perl, Bash/Sh, and .CMD/.BAT.

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.