Useful DBI Functions in Perl

Checking available_drivers

@ary = DBI->available_drivers;
@ary = DBI->available_drivers($quiet);

Returns a list of all available drivers by searching for DBD::* modules through the directories in @INC. By default, a warning is given if some drivers are hidden by others of the same name in earlier directories. Passing a true value for $quiet will inhibit the warning.

Checking installed_drivers

%drivers = DBI->installed_drivers();

Returns a list of driver name and driver handle pairs for all drivers 'installed' (loaded) into the current process. The driver name does not include the 'DBD::' prefix.

Checking data_sources

@ary = DBI->data_sources($driver);

Returns a list of data sources (databases) available via the named driver. If $driver is empty or undef, then the value of the DBI_DRIVER environment variable is used.

Create String quote

$sql = $dbh->quote($value);
$sql = $dbh->quote($value, $data_type);

Quote a string literal for use as a literal value in an SQL statement, by escaping any special characters (such as quotation marks) contained within the string and adding the required type of outer quotation marks.

$sql = sprintf "SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE baz = %s",
$dbh->quote("Don't");

For most database types, quote would return 'Don''t' (including the outer quotation marks). It is valid for the quote() method to return an SQL expression that evaluates to the desired string. For example −

$quoted = $dbh->quote("one\ntwo\0three")
may produce results which will be equivalent to
CONCAT('one', CHAR(12), 'two', CHAR(0), 'three')