Re: $DBI::errstr is always undef

I suspect you want die "couldn't connect!!!: " . DBI->errstr not $DBI::errstr. That is, it's a function, not a string. use strict doesn't catch those when you change namespace like that. Although, the documentation for DBI clearly shows $DBI::errstr, so who knows. Personally, I use the function and don't get any warnings.

UPDATE: ikegami, yes, I said that the example shows $DBI::errstr. No need to point it out again. What I was saying is that using the function also works and avoids the warning. In fact the function really just returns the scalar, so it's a silly thing to argue about anyway.

And if you're curious, they haven't updated the docs yet, but there's been a todo item about it for like 8 years:

# Help people doing DBI->errstr, might even document it one day
# XXX probably best moved to cheaper XS code
sub err    { $DBI::err    }
sub errstr { $DBI::errstr }
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-Paul

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Re^2: $DBI::errstr is always undef by ikegami (Patriarch) on Mar 02, 2007 at 22:25 UTC
According to the docs, `$DBI::errstr` is a "dynamic attribute", "always associated with the last handle used", and is "Equivalent to `$h->errstr`." The example in the documentation for `connect` even uses `$DBI::errstr`, not `DBI->errstr`.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: $DBI::errstr is always undef by Anonymous Monk on Oct 04, 2011 at 03:05 UTC
Jettero, that's it! The documentation is wrong. I have been going crazy tonight trying to track this down. A bit of googling will reveal that hundreds of people have suffered the same problem. This needs to be a priority to fix it. By the way, I'm using DBD::mysql and it's just the same.	[reply]
Re^3: $DBI::errstr is always undef by mje (Curate) on Oct 04, 2011 at 09:49 UTC
I don't think the documentation is wrong at all. There may be something wrong with DBD::mysql in your case and perhaps with DBD::Oracle in the past but for DBD::ODBC and DBD::Oracle now `perl -le 'use strict; use warnings;use DBI; my $h = DBI->connect("dbi: +ODBC:does_not_exist", undef, undef, {PrintError => 0, RaiseError => 0 +}) or die $DBI::errstr;' [unixODBC][Driver Manager]Data source name not found, and no default d +river specified (SQL-IM002) at -e line 1.` [download] `perl -le 'use strict; use warnings; use DBI; my $h = DBI->connect("dbi +:Oracle:host=fred.example.com;sid=fred", "xxx","yyy", {RaiseError => +0, PrintError => 0}) or die $DBI::errstr;' ORA-24327: need explicit attach before authenticating a user (DBD ERRO +R: OCISessionBegin) at -e line 1.` [download] they both seem to work fine for me. Interestingly, every time (except for the OP in this thread) I see this mentioned these days it is DBD::mysql. However, for me even DBD::mysql works fine: `perl -le 'use strict; use warnings; use DBI; my $h = DBI->connect("dbi +:mysql:database=testd", "xxx","yyy", {RaiseError => 0, PrintError => +0}) or die $DBI::errstr;' Unknown database 'testd' at -e line 1.` [download] I'm using all the latest released DBDs and DBI.	[reply] [d/l] [select]