dbi:pg and meta commands

Hello,

Im attempting to write a script that runs .sql files. I have several
databases, Id like the script to log into each database, do some queries
to check the data, and based on those queries decided to run a given
.sql file or not.

Ive been using perl and dbi, however Ive always run SQL statements from
a file using the meta-command \i. However DBI seems to choke on this.
Running the files from the shell doesn't work due to the script tripping
on the password prompt (which I cannot get around on this setup).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can either run meta commands
via DBI or dodge the password prompt without changing the security
setup? Or maybe a different approach entirely.

Thank you for any suggestions,
-A Gilmore