Can I use something other than sth?

Yes, of course you can. $sth is just a variable name that's generally used in DBI examples. You can use anything you like :)

Just a couple of other quick pointers that may save you some grief further down the track:

• try to get into the habit of always checking the return values of your DBI calls. The general way to do this is:

  my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI::ODBC ... etc $dsn") 
      or die("Couldn't connect to $dsn: $DBI::errstr\n");
  [download]

• another good habit to get into is to use placeholders wherever you can. This a safer method and ensures that your strings will always be properly quoted. For example, instead of:

  my $sth = $dbh->prepare("INSERT INTO table VALUES (value1, value2, val
  +ue3)");
  [download]

  You would do:

  my $sth = $dbh->prepare("INSERT INTO table VALUES (?, ?, ?)");
  [download]

  and then later...

  $sth->execute($foo, $bar, $baz);
  [download]

You'll find plenty of examples of this and lots more information in the links I gave you earlier.

Cheers,
Darren :)