Overall, what I'm trying to do is to automate Oracle code builds. I check out the files locally, and then I load up a hash of hashes to keep track of what I'm loading, the compiled state, etc. So one of the key:value pairs for a named piece of code is 'full_name':'c:\..\..\..'. The files that I am working on contain Oracle functions, procedures, packages, etc.

I didn't mean to be mis-leading in the Subject line - I would either (1) pass the actual file into DBI (like SQL Plus) or (2) read in the file contents, and then prepare() that. I just can't seem to get either to work. I will work on the suggestion from roboticus (thank you very much!) It didn't work on the first pass, but I will focus on the  undef issue. Thank you!