Thanks for the reply, Larry and I apologize for the delay getting back to you. That $passwd is a scalar. I've tried using, "connect($dsn,$user,$passwd)" as well as "connect("DBI:mysql:servers", "my uid", "mypasswd", {'RaiseError' => 1})" and the only thing that works is the hardcoded data as in the latter example. I've tried some of the other suggestions submitted without any luck so far.
I would be happy to have the script prompt me for my password and be able to pass it in $passwd but haven't gotten that to work either.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Fred