Connecting To MySQL Database

Before you can get content out of your MySQL database, you must know how to establish a connection to MySQL from inside a PHP script. To perform basic queries from within MySQL is very easy. This article will show you how to get up and running.
Let's get started. The first thing to do is connect to the database.The function to connect to MySQL is called mysql_connect. This function returns a resource which is a pointer to the database connection. It's also called a database handle, and we'll use it in later functions. Don't forget to replace your connection details.Here is a code to connect to the MySQL database.

//set the variables
$username = "your_name";
$password = "your_password";
$hostname = "localhost";
//connection to the database
$dbhandle = mysql_connect($hostname, $username, $password)
or die("Unable to connect to MySQL");
echo "Connected to MySQL";

All going well, you should see "Connected to MySQL" when you run this script. If you can't connect to the server, make sure your password, username and hostname are correct.Once you've connected, you're going to want to select a database to work with. Let's assume the database is called 'examples'. To start working in this database, you'll need the mysql_select_db() function:

//select a database to work with
$selected = mysql_select_db("examples",$dbhandle)
or die("Could not select examples");

A opened connection should be closed at the end of the script.Here is the small code to close a MySQL database connection.

//close the connection
mysql_close($dbhandle);

This three code fragments is sufficient to connect to a MySQL Database.Here is the complete to for your convenience.The total code should be written inside the php tag.

//stating of the script
$username = "your_name";
$password = "your_password";
$hostname = "localhost";

 //connection to the database
$dbhandle = mysql_connect($hostname, $username, $password)
or die("Unable to connect to MySQL");
echo "Connected to MySQL";
//select a database to work with
$selected = mysql_select_db("examples",$dbhandle)
or die("Could not select examples");
 //close the connection
mysql_close($dbhandle);
//end of the script