this is my test script so far, which is not working:

use DBI;
use Rose::DB;

my $dbh = DBI->connect( 'DBI:mysql:database=mydb', 'user', 'pass' );

my $rdb = Rose::DB->new( driver => "mysql" );
$rdb->dbh( $dbh );

print "still here\n";
[download]

No database information found for domain 'default' and type 'default' at rdttest.pl line 6

update:

it looks like this works, clunky as it seems:

use base qw( Rose::DB );

__PACKAGE__->use_private_registry;
__PACKAGE__->register_db(
    driver   => 'mysql',
    database => 'fake',
    host     => 'fake',
    username => 'fake',
    password => 'fake'
);


package My::RDBO::User;
use base qw( Rose::DB::Object );
use DBI;

__PACKAGE__->meta->setup(
    table      => 'user',
    columns    => [qw( id username password email name )],
    pk_columns => 'id',
    unique_key => 'username',
);

sub init_db {
    my $dbh = DBI->connect( 'DBI:mysql:database=mydb', 'user', 'pass' 
+);
    my $rdb = My::RDB->new;
    $rdb->dbh($dbh);
    return $rdb;
}


package main;
my $u = My::RDBO::User->new(id => 1);
$u->load;
print("$_ => ", $u->$_, "\n") foreach $u->meta->columns;
[download]

using $db->dbh as a setter isn't documented, but this approach sounds reasonable if i can get it to work.

Whoops, yeah, I'll go document that now. Anyway, as you discovered, you have to register at least one data source to instantiate a Rose::DB object. You don't actually have to provide all the information that you did, however. In most cases, just specifying a driver will work.