Hello IB2017,

The behaviour of DBD::SQLite when used with a non-existent file is a feature. It allows to create a fresh database out of thin air. You only get an error if you don't have the permission to write to the file's directory.

As the docs say:

The file is opened in read/write mode, and will be created if it does not exist yet.

Although the database is stored in a single file, the directory containing the database file must be writable by SQLite because the library will create several temporary files there.