A couple of weeks ago, I wrote and uploaded a new module to the CPAN, Exception::Class::DBI. This module subclasses Dave Rolsky's great Exception::Class module to provide DBI-specific exceptions for all you DBI users out there. I've done my best to make it easy to use, too. Here's an example cribbed from the synopsis:
use DBI;
use Exception::Class::DBI;
my $dbh = DBI->connect( $data_source, $username, $auth,
{ PrintError => 0,
RaiseError => 0,
HandleError => Exception::Class::DBI->handler
});
eval { $dbh->do($sql) };
if (my $ex = $@) {
print STDERR "DBI Exception:\n";
print STDERR " Exception Type: ", ref $ex, "\n";
print STDERR " Error: ", $ex->error, "\n";
print STDERR " Err: ", $ex->err, "\n";
print STDERR " Errstr: " $ex->errstr, "\n";
print STDERR " State: ", $ex->state, "\n";
my $ret = $ex->retval;
$ret = 'undef' unless defined $ret;
print STDERR " Return Value: $ret\n";
}
Not too bad, eh? Unfortunately, there are a few issues. What the module does is grab all of the relevant DBI attributes that it can. Unfortunately, however, not all of the attributes are fully implemented by all drivers. Furthermore, DBI doesn't provide default values for all of them.
However, I'm pulling together a list of all the issues I found with DBI attributes, and when Tim Bunce returns from vacation in a week or so, I'll submit them, along with all the patches I could figure out. I'll probably also provide a test suite, too, just to try to keep things consistent going forward.
I'm also working on a patch to the DBI itself to have it throw class exceptions whenever possible, too. Right now, it only throws object exceptions, but there are a number of places where they could be thrown in a class context, too, mainlyl during object construction (i.e., when calling connect(). We'll see how that goes over.
In the meantime, feedback on the current implementation is more than welcome!