The alternatives: Microsoft

## note that you'll need to define the ODBC connection separately
$dbh = new Win32::ODBC ("cms");
unless ($dbh->Sql("SELECT * FROM foo")) {
  while ($dbh->FetchRow()) {
    for my $field ($dbh->FieldNames()) {
      print $field, " ", $dbh->Data($field), "\n";
    }
  }
}

• You can't have more than one query going at once.
• The full connection syntax is even more horrible than this.

## The Perl Way:
$dbh = DBI->connect('dbi:Oracle:sid,'user','pass');
$sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM foo");
$sth->execute();
while ($hr = $sth->fetchrow_hashref()) {
  for my $field (keys %$hr) {
    print $field, " ", $hr->{$field}, "\n";
  }
}

• Don't need to use "machine data sources" (can't!).
• Native perlish structures are returned.
• Alternatives to hashref exist -- array, arrayref, etc.