Thanks wjw,
Actually the problem code works under the previous version. And all other code (except any code which looks to return rows from a temporary table) works fine under the new version so the connection and permissions must be correct. It really seems as if the 2.18 version of Sybperl lacks the functionality the 1.x versions had. The Sybperl::DBlib module also seems to have the same problem. Haven't had a chance to check the Sybperl::CTlib module yet.
Anyway, thanks for your response! Redwing.