Perl Biomart timeout error

Question

I'm using Biomart Perl API to download data from web serwer. Sometimes I get error message: Problems with the web server: 500 read timeout. Is it possible to somehow catch this error and try to download file again?

Answer 1

Are you reading this via a Perl command or module command? Or shelling to an external program? Because there are different Perl error variables for all those.

# $@ = error from Perl
# $! = error from C library
# $^E = error from OS
# $? = error from external program
eval {
    read command;
    more stuff; 
}; # Notice semicolon here!
if ($@)
    {print "ERROR: $@\n";
    }