$dbh = db_connect($database,$user,$password); 

##</code><code>##

sub db_connect {
   ($database,$user,$password) = @_;
   my $h = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:$database", $user, $password)
   or printError("Unable to connect to $database" . $DBI::errstr);
   return $h;
}

##</code><code>##

# script config file
 $database = "shafi";
 $user = "shafi"; 
 $password ="shafi";
1;

##</code><code>##

=================================================
#!/usr/bin/perl
use DBI;
print "Content-type:text/html\n\n";
$db_handle = DBI->connect("dbi:mysql:database=dbxxxxxxxx;host=dbxxx.oneandone.co.uk;user=dboxxxxxxxx;password=xxxxxxxx")
    or die "Couldn't connect to database: $DBI::errstr\n";

    $sql = "SELECT * FROM puretest";
    $statement = $db_handle->prepare($sql)
    or die "Couldn't prepare query '$sql': $DBI::errstr\n";

    $statement->execute()
    or die "Couldn't execute query '$sql': $DBI::errstr\n";
    while ($row_ref = $statement->fetchrow_hashref())
          {
              print "Name <b>$row_ref->{name}</b> has email address::<b>$row_ref->{email}</b>.<br>";
           }

    $db_handle->disconnect();
===================================================