Hello. I am taking a Perl class in college and we've briefly covered SQL and moved on. We have a term project and we can do whatever we want. My project will rely strongly on an SQL Database so I am trying to learn as much about Perl DBI as I can to get things up and going.

I am basically making CGI scripts that take user input from forms and then put that into database tables so I will need to be able to search, edit, insert and delete data entries. I am essentially having trouble getting on my feet with how to manipulate data in my database.

My instructor set up a database for me which I can access and edit but I am already having trouble with my script. I am hoping that someone can help me figure out what things I need to include in my code to get this working.

So far, I have a CGI script that takes a few fields of form data from a webpage: username, email, and password. I am attempting to put this into an SQL table called "user_accounts" and this table has three colomns named "username", "password", and "email".

Here is my Perl code with the DBI code in there to access the database:

Code:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
use CGI qw(:standard);
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

print header;
print start_html;
use DBI;

#FROM FORM
$NewUserName=param('NewUserName');
$NewEmail=param('NewEmail');
$Password=param('Password');
$CryptPassword=crypt("$Password","CS");

#SQL CODE

$dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:daveDB","dave","pass412");
$sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$res = $sth->execute();
$dbh = ("INSERT INTO user_accounts (username, email, password)
VALUES ($NewUserName, $NewEmail, $CryptPassword)");
$sth->finish();
$dbh->disconnect();

print end_html;

When I run this, I get this error message: "Can't locate object method "disconnect" via package "INSERT INTO user_accounts (username, email, password)"

I have googled this error message and I have edited my code a little here and there and gotten a few different errors which I do not fully understand or know how to fix. I have read over the pages of my textbook that cover DBI and I have looked at Oreilly's Perl DBI book and I have googled countless times and I just cant figure out how to simply make some lines of code that access and edit my SQL database. I really need some help so I can get things functioning for my project as I am going to eventually run out of time.

Any help is very appreciated
Dave247