In addition to what repson said, you may want switch on RaiseError:

my ($dbh) = DBI->connect("DBI:ODBC:messagestore", "user", "password", 
+{RaiseError => 1});
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This allows for a more extensive amount of information when dying than what you have now.

Furthermore,

my ($message_id) = $data[1];
my ($message_date) = $data[2];
my ($message_time) = $data[3];
my ($message_sender_name) = $data[4];
my ($message_to_name) = $data[5];
my ($department_id) = $data[6];
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is better written as:

my (undef, $message_id, $message_date, $message_time, $message_sender_
+name, $message_to_name, $department_id) = @data;
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At least, that's my opinion :-)

[ ar0n ]