MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Name

errstr()

Synopsis

$handle->errstr()

This function returns any error messages from the last driver method called.

...
my $dbh = DBI->connect('DBI:mysql:bookstore:localhost','username',
   'wrong_password')
          || die DBI->errstr;

Notice the errstr() method is added to the end of the database handle as part of the die function from Perl. Here are the results of executing this connect() with the wrong password:

DBI connect('bookstore:localhost','russell',...) failed: 
Access denied for user 'russell'@'localhost' (using password: YES) 
at ./dbi_test_program.plx line 8...

Notice that the error message does not display the password given.