I'm using DBI to write a monitoring program for our informix
servers.  Problem I am running into is that if the database server
(to which I am always connecting via a tcp connection) is down
completely, the connect() takes a very long time before it returns.
The same server in quiescent mode returns quite quickly, as
expected.  My question: Is there a parameter or other setting that
can be used to have the connect return more quickly, i.e. some
sort of timeout value?  I tried using an alarm(), but the connect
appear to ignore the alarm.

Thanks,
Dave