Dbd::mysql is the perl5 database interface driver for the mysql database. in other words: dbd::mysql is an interface between the perl programming language and the mysql programming api that comes with the mysql relational database management system. most functions provided by this programming api are supported. some rarely used functions are missing, mainly because noone ever requested them. however supported features include: compression of data between server and client; timeouts; ssl; prepared statement support; server administration such as creating and dropping databases and restarting the server; auto-reconnection; utf8; bind type guessing; bind comment placeholders; automated insert ids; transactions; multiple result sets and multithreading.