http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=535144


in reply to Catching DBI (or other) errors

I suggest that you either replace the curly braces with parentheses, or use 'or' rather than '||': 
  $query->execute() || ($SQL_FAIL =1);
  $query->execute() or $SQL_FAIL =1;

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'or' has a lower precedence than '=', but '||' has a higher precedence, which is what makes parentheses necessary in your original statement.

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom