http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=742061

mboudreau has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Salvete omnes!

I'm trying to connect to a MySQL database. The connection works in a Perl script I run on the command line, but it fails in an HTML::Mason page executed by mod_perl.

I'm on Mac OS X 10.5.6, Perl 5.8.8, mod_perl 2.0.4, MySQL 5.0.45, DBI 1.607, DBD::mysql 4.010. Here's the code:

use DBI;
my $dbsrc = 'DBI:mysql:test:localhost';
my %attr  = ( PrintError => 0, RaiseError => 0 );
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dbsrc, 'mboudreau', 'secret', \%attr) or die "
+$DBI::err
str";
$dbh->disconnect;

[download]

and here's the error message I get:

Can't locate auto/DBI/connect.al in @INC (@INC contains: /System/Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.8.8 /Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.8.8 /Library/Perl /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.8 /Network/Library/Perl /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8 /Library/Perl/5.8.6/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.8.6 /Library/Perl/5.8.1 . /usr) at /Users/mrb/Sites/mason_mysql_test.mhtml line 17

I've searched my computer (sudo find / -name connect.al -print) for 'connect.al' and it's nowhere to be found. I've reinstalled DBI and DBD::mysql, no errors, no luck. Googling for this error message turns up a lot of people who had typos in their connection statement, but I don't think that's the case here (identical code works fine in a command-line script). Any guidance?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: DBI error under mod_perl
by perrin (Chancellor) on Feb 07, 2009 at 03:27 UTC
    This probably means that your mod_perl was compiled against a different perl binary than the one you have now. Recompile mod_perl.
[reply]

      While running 'make test' on mod_perl, I got test failures accompanied by more error messages about the missing DBI/connect.al. So I reinstalled DBI from scratch, restarted Apache, and now everything works. I could have sworn there were no errors when I reinstalled DBI prior to recompiling mod_perl, but perhaps I missed something.

      What puzzles me is that, now that things are working, I still don't find 'connect.al' anywhere on my computer, though apparently Perl has stopped asking for it. What should I learn from that?

[reply]
        Ok, I guess your DBI was not compiled against the same perl as mod_perl. This can happen if Apple updates the system perl. On a production system, you either have to avoid system updates that will update perl or just install a separate perl for your use and leave the system one to Apple.
[reply]

        My guess is that DBI could not use the database driver you had in your connection string so attempted to use a generic driver.

[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom