#!/usr/local/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use DBI;
require '/up/web/standard.pl';

my $dbh = db_connect_local(); # my home-grown connection routine
my $statement = 'select blah from my_table'; # blah is not a valid column on that table.

my $sth = $dbh->prepare($statement);
unless ($sth) { 
  print "Error: $DBI::errstr\n";
}