Well, there are still pieces of your script missing, so I'm not sure I've captured all of the functionality, but try this...

#!/usr/bin/perl

  use strict;
  use warnings;
  use DBI;

  my $alertstable = $ARGV[0] || 'alertstable';

  my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:database=dbname;host=sqlhost",
                           'username','password',
                          {'RaiseError'=>1});


  my $sth=&Do_SQL("Select * from bademails ORDER BY ID DESC");

  while (my $pointer = $sth->fetchrow_hashref) {
     my $bademail = $pointer->{'email'};

     my $sth2=&Do_SQL2("Select * from $alertstable where email LIKE '%
+$bademail%'");

     while (my $pointer2 = $sth2->fetchrow_hashref) {
    
          my $item = $pointer2->{'type'};
        my $alertype = $pointer2->{'alertype'};
        my $emaillist = $pointer2->{'email'};
        my $ID = $pointer2->{'ID'};



        my @emails = split /~~~/,$emaillist;
          my @goodmails = ();
        foreach my $address (@emails) {

            print "$ID<Br>\n";

               if ($address ne $bademail) {
                 push @goodmails,$address;
               }
        }
        if (scalar(@goodmails)) {
            my $newlist=join('~~~',@goodmails);
            $dbh->do("UPDATE $alertstable SET email='$newlist' WHERE t
+ype='$item' and alerttype='$alertype';") || die $dbh->errstr;
            print "Updated $ID<Br>\n";
        }
     }
    
  } # end while

  $dbh->disconnect;


sub Do_SQL{
  my ($SQL)=@_;
  my $sth;

  eval {
    $sth = $dbh->prepare($SQL);
  }; 

  # check for errors
  if($@){
    $dbh->disconnect;
    print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
    print "An ERROR occurred! $@\n";
    exit;
  } else {
    $sth->execute;
  } 
  return ($sth);
}
[download]

You'll need to fix up the connect code to reflect your username and password for the database, and it was not clear what $alertable ever got set to, so make sure it is right.

Scott

What do those Do_SQL, Do_SQL2 and Do_SQL3 routines do?

Scott

They are all the same but they do this...

sub Do_SQL{
  eval {
    $sth = $dbh->prepare($SQL);
  }; # end of eval

  # check for errors
  if($@){
    $dbh->disconnect;
    print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
    print "An ERROR occurred! $@\n";
    exit;
  } else {
    $sth->execute;
  } # end of if/else
  return ($sth);
}
## End
[download]

Guess I'm confused then. Why have three identical subroutines with three different names?

Also, The subroutines return a statement handle, yet you are not capturing any return value. That means your first fetch is fetching what? And your second fetch literally doesn't exist, how are you retrieving anything from the db for the second select statement?

You say you didn't write the script, but are trying to adjust it. I can't see where the script ever worked at all, did you leave something out?

Scott