Script to test connecting to Oracle DBs

Hi all,

I am looking for a Perl script or something similar that I can use to test
connection from a client PC to several databases on a server.

Does anyone know of any such script lying around somewhere :(-

Currently, am testing connection from a client PC to an Oracle DB using
Oracle's sqlplus. All is well and good until I have to test connection to
multiple databases on the server.

So I am hoping to use a Perl script that I can use which will parse some
sort of config file that contains hostname.tns_alias combination and then
test connection to the Oracle DB and run a simple SQL like SELECT COUNT(1)
from USER_TABLES, if I get an error, that means there is an issue
connection to that database, otherwise all is good.

At the moment, easiest I can think of using Perl's system command to run
sqlplus. Or is it better to look at using DBI? Would be very much
appreciated if someone can provide me a simple DBI script to start with if
that is the best approach to use.

Any suggestion/advice much appreciated. Thanks in advance.