Is there a better approach to it than that?

I would start by asking myself what is it I want to test? Write a test strategy, and take it on from there. Then break it down to individual tests e.g.

• Does the application behave as I expect when the database is unavailable?
• Does the application behave as I expect when the database returns unexpected results (e.g. no data, wrong charset, wrong number of columns, wrong data types, ..)?
• Does the application behave as I expect in a foreign environment (e.g. on a different OS)?
• ..

Suggested reading: Perl Testing.

You may also want to take a look at Test::MockDBI (Disclaimer: I one filed a patch to the given module and ended up as its' co-maintainer).

Best of luck.