We are controlling the choices, they will only be able to connect databases we allow them to, so far it is a flatfile and mySQl databes, I am working on the MS SQL 2k database. I have created scripts to connect though the ODBC and the ADO but want to creat a script that does not use thouse, I know in ASP you can do it (it's called a DNS-less connection). And was hoping that there is something like that in perl.