#! perl -w scipt use strict; use DBI; use DBD::ODBC; my ( $data_source, $database, $user_id, $password ) = qw( matt First_trial matt gold ); my $conn_string = "driver={SQL Server};Server=$data_source;Database=$database;UID=$user_id;PWD=$password"; my $dbh = DBI->connect( "DBI:ODBC:$conn_string" ) or die $DBI::errstr; my $sql = "SELECT * FROM Doncaster_1975_onwards LIMIT 100"; my $sth = $dbh->prepare( $sql ); $sth->execute; my $out = "out_connection.txt"; open (OUT, "$out"); while ( my $result = $sth->fetchrow_hashref ) { # Your fields can be accessed through the $result hashref, for example: print OUT "$result\n"; } $dbh->disconnect; C:\Documents and Settings\MattR\2003\Perl\November\5_12_04>perl Data_A.pl DBI connect('driver={SQL Server};Server=matt;Database=First_trial;UID=matt ;PWD=gold','',...) failed: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][Named Pipes]S pecified SQL server not found. (SQL-08001) [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][Named Pipes]ConnectionOpen (CreateFile()). ( SQL-01000)(DBD: db_login/SQLConnect err=-1) at Data_A.pl line 15 [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][Named Pipes]Specified SQL server not found. (SQL-08001) [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][Named Pipes]ConnectionOpen (CreateFile()). ( SQL-01000)(DBD: db_login/SQLConnect err=-1) at Data_A.pl line 15.