Not that you asked this question (or want an answer) but do you really want to do this:

 
my $cltid = add_client(\$dbhTarget, $clt, $passwd);
... 
sub add_client() {
...
my $sth = $$dbh->prepare($sql)
...
[download]

Unless a *SCALAR* is holding a large amount of data, this is just unnecessary. In this case (if it's DBI), you all ready have a small, easy on the stack, reference.

-derby