It looks like there might be a problem with your query as that error message would seem to imply that mysql is looking for a table called 'P'. It's difficuly to be sure tho' as your query is pretty badly formatted. Is there any chance you could tidy it up.

Your first approach should be to eliminate Perl and DBI as sources of the the problem. You can do this by seeing if the query works from the mysql command line application. You say that you have had problems doing that, but the mysql program should easily handle queries much longer than yours.

I think you need to take this to a mysql mailing list or forum in order to find out whether or not this is a mysql syntax problem. If you find that your query works without problems from mysql command line app, then come back here and we'll see if we can work out what DBD::mysql is doing wrong.

Update: Another important piece of information that you omit is to tell us the version of MySQL that you are are using. I seem to remember that MySQL's support of the "left join on" syntax was a bit problematic in versions before 4.x.