Connecting to OpenText™ Analytics Database using Perl

You use the Perl DBI module's connect function to connect to OpenText™ Analytics Database.

You use the Perl DBI module's connect function to connect to OpenText™ Analytics Database. This function takes a required data source string argument and optional arguments for the username, password, and connection attributes.

The data source string must start with "dbi:ODBC:", which tells the DBI module to use the DBD::ODBC driver to connect to the database. The remainder of the string is interpreted by the DBD::ODBC driver. It usually contains the name of a DSN that contains the connection information needed to connect to your database. For example, to tell the DBD::ODBC driver to use the DSN named VerticaDSN, you use the data source string:

"dbi:ODBC:VerticaDSN"

The username and password parameters are optional. However, if you do not supply them (or just the username for a passwordless account) and they are not set in the DSN, attempting to connect always fails.

The connect function returns a database handle if it connects to the database. If it does not, it returns undef. In that case, you can access the DBI module's error string property ($DBI::errstr) to get the error message.

The following example connects to the database with a DSN named VerticaDSN. The call to connect supplies a username and password. After connecting, it calls the database handle's disconnect function, which closes the connection:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use DBI;
# Open a connection using a DSN. Supply the username and password.
my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:ODBC:VerticaDSN","ExampleUser","password123");
unless (defined $dbh) {
    # Conection failed.
    die "Failed to connect: $DBI::errstr";
}
print "Connected!\n";
$dbh->disconnect();