I don't use Win32::ODBC, so I can't speak to the details. However, since you're new to perl, here's a handy tip:

Generally, when you see something like: $var->function(parameters), it means that $var contains an object, and function is a function/method/subroutine defined in the object definition. You can usually find out information on these functions in the documentation for the object using the command perldoc Module::Containing::Object at your command prompt.

So, if you have code like:

use Win32::ODBC;
my $mydb=Win32::ODBC('MyDSN');
$mydb->Sql("exec Stored_Procedure_Name");
if ($mydb->FetchRow())
{
     %Info = $mydb->DataHash();
}
[download]

the second line tells you that $mydb is a Win32::ODBC object, so you can read information about the Sql, FetchRow and DataHash methods by executing perldoc Win32::ODBC at the command line.

If the function doesn't have a $var-> prefix, then you'll have several places to look. I normally first run perldoc perlfunc to see if it's one of the standard ones. Failing that, then I go through the list of modules in the use Module::Name; statements one after another until I find the one that's exporting the function I'm looking for.

...roboticus

Update: Trivial formatting fix

Thank you very much for your suggestions