I know how to do the queries which go like this: 
$sth = $dbh->prepare( "something" ) 
  || die "Error: " . $dbh->errstr;
$sth->execute()
while ( my $ref = $sth->fetchrow_hashref() )
    {
        print "$ref->{something}";
    }
}

[download]

But that's a lot of code to get a single value that I know is there.

I know, because I've asked this question before on the Chatterbox, (sorry about any déjà vu!) that there's a way to do something like this 

$single_scalar = $sth->something();

[download]

It's not a major issue, it's just that when I just want to get something really simple, like the first name of a person whose ID is '1', and I know they exist, I still end up doing that whole hashref thing, which is overkill.

As I say, I know I've asked this before, and forgotten the answer, but I also don't know where to look in the documentation to find answers like this. So it's a "teach a man to fish" thing. Tell me where I should be looking up this kind of thing and I promise not to ask again.


($_='kkvvttuubbooppuuiiffssqqffssmmiibbddllffss')
=~y~b-v~a-z~s; print

In reply to Simpler DBI::MySQL queries by Cody Pendant

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