Appendix G. Perl DBI API Reference

This appendix describes the Perl DBI application programming interface. The API consists of a set of methods and attributes for communicating with database servers and accessing databases from Perl scripts. The appendix also describes MySQL-specific extensions to DBI provided by DBD::mysql, the MySQL database driver. It does not describe the older Mysqlperl interface, which is obsolete.

Some DBI methods and attributes are not discussed here, either because they do not apply to MySQL or because they are new, experimental methods that may change as they are developed or may even be dropped. Some MySQL-specific DBD methods are not discussed because they are obsolete. If you want more information about new or obsolete methods, see the DBI documentation or the MySQL DBD documentation, which you can get by running the following commands:

 % perldoc DBI  % perldoc DBI::FAQ % perldoc DBD::mysql 

This appendix serves as a reference, so it includes only brief code fragments illustrating use of the Perl DBI API. For complete client scripts and instructions for writing them, see Chapter 7, "The Perl DBI API."