note Steve_BZ <p>Hi Moritz, <p>Thanks for this. Well I can see: <p> <c>If omitted, $user defaults to the ISC_USER environment variable (or, failing that, the DBI-standard DBI_USER environment variable). Similarly, $password defaults to ISC_PASSWORD (or DBI_PASS). If $dbname is blank, that is, "dbi:Firebird:dbname=", the environment variable ISC_DATABASE is substituted.</c> <p> For using with the <c>connect</c> statement, but I don't see anything for using with install and it's <c>cpan -i DBD::Firebird</c> which is falling over not the <c>connect</c> statement. <p>But it's true that <c>cpan -i DBD::InterBase</c> asks a lot of questions, the answers to which it presumably put into environment vars, and you might expect DBD::Firebird to need the same info. Am I missing something? <p>Thanks again for your help. <p>Regards <p>Steve 980090 980232