sybperl-l Archive

From: Michael Peppler <mpeppler at MBAY dot NET>
Subject: Problems understanding error handling
Date: Jul 17 1998 10:13PM

Johnson, Phil writes:
 > I've been having some trouble understanding the whole error message handling
 > spiel.
 > 
 > For the longest time, I've just been putting dbmsghandle("message_handler")
 > at the top of my perl scripts and it has served me well.
 > 
 > Now, I need to actually trap an error (namely: Sybase error: Unable to
 > connect: SQL Server is unavailable or does not exist.).  If I can't connect,
 > then I must start up the Sybase NetGateway process via a system call.
 > 
 > Here is how I connect to a Sybase NetGateway:
 > 
 > $d = new Sybase::DBlib 'blar', 'bload', 'DCAT_DAL1_G_SYG';
 > $ref = $d->sql("exec sgw_status clients");
 > 
 > for $line (@$ref) {
 > 	do_stuff;
 > }
 > 
 > So how do I trap the error that is generated by the $d = new Sybase::DBlib
 > call?

What happens after a server error is detected depends on what is
returned from the error_handler. For *server* errors the message
handler is called first, and then the error handler. For *client*
errors (typically the 'can't connect' error is a client error) only
the error_handler is called. The important thing is to return
INT_CANCEL from the error handler, and then to test the return value
from new Sybase::DBlib to see if the dbopen() succeeded.

Something like:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use Sybase::DBlib;
require 'sybutil.pl';

$dbh = new Sybase::DBlib user, pwd, server;
if(!$dbh) {
	warn "connect failed!\n";
}

produces:

Sybase error: Unable to connect: SQL Server is unavailable or does not exist.
connect failed!

when the SQL server is not running.

Michael
-- 
Michael Peppler         -||-  Data Migrations Inc.
mpeppler@datamig.com    -||-  http://www.mbay.net/~mpeppler
Int. Sybase User Group  -||-  http://www.isug.com