Passing credentials via options file fails to read password (mariadb_read_default_file)

[Andreas Hadjiprocopis]

I am storing DB credentials into a text file and tell the driver via the DSN string to read them. In MySQL this DSN string worked:
DBI:mysql:mysql_read_default_file=config/mysql.credentials;mysql_read_default_group=client;

with said file to contain this:

[client]
user=test
password=apass

Now, I am migrating to MariaDB and my adjusted DSN string is:
DBI:MariaDB:mariadb_read_default_file=config/mysql.credentials;mariadb_read_default_group=client;

This causes an error:
failed: Access denied for user 'test'@'localhost' (using password: NO) at ...

Please note that it reads the username correctly (test) but does not see the password field(?).

Thank you

(Edit: I have posted the same question over at PerlMonks a few days ago: https://perlmonks.org/?node_id=11155362)

[E. Choroba]

It seems to work (correct me if I'm wrong) if you use undef instead of an empty string for the password in the connect incantation.

[Andreas Hadjiprocopis]

Thank you choroba++ that did it!

And sorry I saw your solution at PerlMonks (https://perlmonks.org/?node_id=11155413 too late.

[Andreas Hadjiprocopis]

I think the solution provided by choroba resolves my issue. thank you.