S7 IWP notes - PHP -Create a Connection to a MySQL Database

Create a Connection to a MySQL Database

Before you can access data in a database, you must create a connection to the database.

In PHP, this is done with the mysql_connect() function.

Syntax

mysql_connect(servername,username,password);

Parameter	Description
servername	Optional. Specifies the server to connect to. Default value is "localhost:3306"
username	Optional. Specifies the username to log in with. Default value is the name of the user that owns the server process
password	Optional. Specifies the password to log in with. Default is ""

Note: There are more available parameters, but the ones listed above are the most important. Visit our full PHP MySQL Reference for more details.

Example

In the following example we store the connection in a variable ($con) for later use in the script. The "die" part will be executed if the connection fails:

<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
if (!$con)
  {
  die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
  }

// some code
?>

---

Closing a Connection

The connection will be closed automatically when the script ends. To close the connection before, use the mysql_close() function:

<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
if (!$con)
  {
  die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
  }

// some code

mysql_close($con);
?>

Create table and database

<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
if (!$con)
  {
  die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
  }

// Create database
if (mysql_query("CREATE DATABASE my_db",$con))
  {
  echo "Database created";
  }
else
  {
  echo "Error creating database: " . mysql_error();
  }

// Create table
mysql_select_db("my_db", $con);
$sql = "CREATE TABLE Persons
(
FirstName varchar(15),
LastName varchar(15),
Age int
)";

// Execute query
mysql_query($sql,$con);

mysql_close($con);
?>

Insertion

mysql_query("INSERT INTO Persons (FirstName, LastName, Age)
VALUES ('Peter', 'Griffin',35)");

selection

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Persons");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
  {
  echo $row['FirstName'] . " " . $row['LastName'];
  echo "<br />";
  }