Installing DBI on Windows Systems

The DBI is the DataBase Interface that Perl uses to interact with databases. The DBI is the main component; you also need to install a DataBase Driver (DBD) that corresponds to your database. DBI and DBD are actually supposed to mean DataBase Independent and DataBase Dependent because the DBI is used for all databases, whereas the DBD depends on the database that you are connecting to.

To install the DBI for Windows:

1. Go into the ActiveState ActivePerl menu and choose the 'Perl Package Manager' menu item.

2. This brings up a DOS window with a prompt. All you need to do to install the DBI is type:

   install DBI

   This command downloads and installs the DBI module.

3. To install the DBD for Windows, we use the ODBC drivers, so type.

   install DBD-ODBC

   This downloads and installs the ODBC drivers for MySQL.

That is all there is to installing the proper Perl modules! When you are ready to leave the PPM tool, simply type quit.