use MyDB; my $dbh = MyDB::connect(); #### package MyDB; use DBI; my %Default = ( database => 'mydatabase', driver => 'mysql', hostname => 'localhost', port => 3306, username => 'someuser', password => 'topsecret', options => { AutoCommit => 1, RaiseError => 0, } ); sub connect { my %params = @_; my $connect_str=sprintf("dbi:%s:database=%s;hostname=%s;port=%s", $params{driver} || $Default{driver}, $params{database} || $Default{database}, $params{hostname} || $Default{hostname}, $params{port} || $Default{port}); return DBI->connect($connect_str, $params{username} || $Default{username}, $params{password} || $Default{password}, $params{options} || $Default{options} ); } 1;