$dbh->errstr is a function call. You can't put it in a quoted string.

Update: arturo asks me to point out that you can interpolate function calls in quoted strings by doing something nasty and kludgy like:

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

How do I get a meaningful error message returned from this function ? By the way thanks for all the help so far.

$dbh-prepare("select foo from bar")
  || die $dbh->errstr;
[download]

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

Thanks for that. All is working now.