Use Tie::DBI. Example:

use Tie::DBI;

tie %db,Tie::DBI,{db            => "mysql:Perlmonks",
                     table      => "Reputation",
                     key        => "nodeid",
                     user       => $def_dbuser,
                     password   => $def_dbpw,
                     CLOBBER    => 3};
[download]

You can call it %Reputation if you want.

Then, you can access the table directly and intuitively.

   #
   #  Find all the new, deleted and changed entries
   #  And find the longest title
   #  calculate min and max reputations and total
   #  Just want to make one pass through all of the list
   #
   for (keys %db)
   {
      my $type = $db{$_}->{type};
      next if $type eq 'X';
      push (@newnodes, $_) if $type eq 'N';
      push (@deletednodes, $_) if $type eq 'D';
      push (@changednodes, $_) if $type eq 'C';
      $longest_title = max ($longest_title, length ($db{$_}->{title}))
+;
      $total += $db{$_}->{reputation};
      $repmax = max ($repmax, $db{$_}->{reputation});
      $repmin = min ($repmin, $db{$_}->{reputation});
   }
[download]

This sample from my rewrite of luke_repwalker.pl, which I have tweaked to use Tie::DBI.
--
Brovnik