one more addition you may want to consider is setting $db->{RaiseError} or $db->{PrintError} or both.

sub dbConnect{
    my ($database, $username, $password, $hostname) = @_;
    my $db = DBI->connect("DBI:SQLite:$database:$hostname", $username,
    $password) || die "Cannot connect to host database.".$DBI::errstr;
    $db->{RaiseError} = 1;
    $db->{PrintError} = 1;
    return $db;
}
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