in reply to Let's try this again. Script pulling mysterious blank row.

Trying the direct link to your script, gives sometimes the random quote as expected and sometimes an error:
Software error:
[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]String data, right truncation (SQL-
+01004) at D:\FinalFantasyInfo\cgi-bin\rnd-quote.pl line 10.

[download]
Definitely a database or ODBC-error, nothing to do with Perl.

If you had tested the $DBH -> selectrow_array($Statement); for errors, you would have seen this yourself.

Here is a discussion of this error and how to fix it. Not having access to an SQL-server I cannot test it. For those interested, it has to do with the ODBC-driver apparently truncating fields that are too long (above the LongReadLen value and unless LongTruncOK == True the driver reports this as an error.

Update: Well on second sight, it is probably a combination of DBI, DBD::ODBC and SQL-Server that causes this weird behaviour. So Perl is to blame, ... a bit ... a very little bit. ;-)

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom