4.6. Connecting to the database

use DBI;

my $driver = 'mysql';
my $database = 'database_name';         # name of your database here
my $username = undef;                   # your database username
my $password = undef;                   # your database password

# note that username and password should be assigned to if your database
# uses authentication (ie requires you to log in)

# we set up a connection string specific to this database
my $dsn = "DBI:$driver:database=$database";

# make the actual connection - this returns a database handle we can use later
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, $username, $password);

# when you're done (at the end of your script) 
$dbh->disconnect();