use strict;
use DBI;

my $mysql = DBI->connect('DBI:mysql:database=mydb;host=myhost;port=3306', 'user', 'password', {RaiseError => 1});

$mysql->{mysql_auto_reconnect} = 1;

while (1) {

	my $query = $mysql->prepare("select count(*) from sometable");
	$query->execute();
	my ($count) = $query->fetchrow_array;

	printf "Found %d records.\n", $count;
	
	sleep 5*60; # In reality, my program does lots of other things here that may take a while.
}

##</code><code>##

DBD::mysql::st execute failed: Lost connection to MySQL server during query at foo.pl line 11.
DBD::mysql::st execute failed: Lost connection to MySQL server during query at foo.pl line 11.