#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use DBI;
my $dsn = 'driver={SQL Server};server=myserver;database=mydatabase;uid=myuid;pwd=mypassword;'; 
my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:ODBC:$dsn") || die "Couldn't open database: $DBI::errstr\n";
my $sql= 'SELECT count(items) FROM mytable ;';
my $sth=$dbh->prepare($sql);
my $rtv=$sth->execute() || die "Couldn't execute statement: $DBI::errstr\n";
my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array();
print $row[0]."\n";
$dbh->disconnect();