$!
 

shoudnt there be $! instead of $: at the end of die ??.....
die "Could not open database: $:"


because die sends this message to the default variable $!......

thanks....i just started out with perl so have this doubt..

If you mean Perl, then its your choice. I always specify it so that I get the underlying error msg.
If that's a quote from somebody's code, it's probably a typo.
http://perldoc.perl.org/
http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=Tutorials

yes but should we use $! or $:
 

.... whats the difference ??