Please use <code> </code> tags around your code so that the line breaks are preserved. The eval{} goes around the dbi method code! Not around the subroutine! Anyway this is how to use eval... The connect asks to use RaiseError =>1 and I'm not sure that's in effect if the connect fails so I think the extra die is just fine- just in case. If the connect succeeds, the "do" happens next.

sub OpenSybaseConnection 
{ 
    my ($srv, $user, $pwd, $db) = @_; 
    my $dbh; 
    $FH1=$_4; #????????????????????????????
    
    eval
    {
        $dbh=DBI->connect( "dbi:Sybase:server=$srv", $user, $pwd,
                           {RaiseError =>1, PrintError =>1}  )
                             or die "Extra death $DBI::errstr";
                           
        $dbh->do("use $db"); 
    };    
    if($@)   # true if the eval failed (die'd at some point)
    { 
        @proc_error=$@ ; 
        print "inside if\n"; 
        print "Hi:$@"; 
        print "\nIn Common: @proc_error: HELP"; 
    } 
    else    # this is the "no error" case
    {
        $common::conn_hdl = $dbh; 
        print $FH1 "\n\nConnected to Server:$srv, Database:$db\n"; 
    }
    
    return;
}
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