I am a perl newbie as well :) When I insert into a database, I prefer to use the sql statement, so I can see my errors more clearly. I would do the following: $insert="insert into my_table values ('foo', 'bar', 'baz')"; $dbh->do($insert); This way you will get an sql error on the command line. Your problem might be as simple as having input that contains an apostrophe or quotation mark which will cause problems in your insert of a string. So when you get your form input, parse through it, to replace a " ' " with a " \' ". Maya Phansalker