I know this is off topic (slightly), but if you're interested in simplicity, you can save typing || die $dbh->errstr; every time by adding to your DBI->connect. 
my $dbh = DBI->connect("database","user","password","mysql", { RaiseEr
+ror => 1 });

[download]
The RaiseError flag will take care of that for you.
There are other ways of getting the field names, but I'm not for certain that it is always supported.

InfinityandBeyond

In reply to Re: Field names of database table from DBI by infinityandbeyond
in thread Field names of database table from DBI by gregorovius

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