Fletch is right. Even if root can only connect over local host you still have given away way too much information. Also, you should always create underpriviledged users to run programs -- allowing programs / whatever the least privilege possible is a very important programming concept. So create a database and a user (with a password that you don't display on Perlmonks) and use them to connet to the database. Also assign root a password. Do the following in case you don't want to look up the commands (assuming you're using mysql):

I would strongly suggest you don't allow connections from anywhere but localhost. (i.e. use localhost or 127.0.0.1 as your hostname). If you really didn't release your password and deleted it (i.e. the "" was intentional), apologies. However, I figured it's better safe then sorry, so best to give you the information just in case.