Advice--connecting to mySQL database

[Anon]

Okay, complete newbie here 🙂 I'm writing a fairly complex script that is going to require connections to the database on every page. I'm completely confused as to how this should be done? One way that I see talked about is:

$mysql_access = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass);
mysql_select_db("databasename", $mysql_access);

And then just do my query

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * from yada_yada");

But--that only applies to that page, no? So won't I have to put that at the beginning of every function/page? Is there no way to just open a connection once, and then do my queries wherever and whenever I want? I looked at mysql_pconnect, but for whatever reason, that didn't work for me...any tips or advice would be appreciated. I'm so lost...

[siwis]

Create yourself a central (GLOBAL) configuration file which you then simply include into each page at the very top.

Within your global file, specify the database parameters, and make the connection, then within each script you can then just call on that db connection whenever you need it.

Big advantage is that if you ever change database name/password etc, you only ever have to edit that one file instead of every file in the site :-)

In fact, dump any piece of recurring info into the global file.

[Anon]

Dumb question: If I do that, will I be establishing a new connection each time that a page loads? Is that a bad thing? Bad server load, or something?

[[deleted]]

If you call that function which establishes the connection to your db in every php script then you are right.

But i can't see a disadvantage because every link to a mysql db is closed after the pages has been fully interpreted. So the only "Bad thing" would be a milli/microsecond in which the script connects to the database.

ali

[siwis]

Well, as a server admin, I would physically prevent anyone from running a pconnect on my server anyway because it is far more wasteful of resources than ever it would be to connect/query/close each time.

Imagine a server with 100 sites, each db driven all using pconnect with visitors arriving every minute etc. That server would soon fall if all those connections were persistent.

Like ali said, the time difference would be measured in milliseconds anyway.

[Anon]

Okay, just wanted to make sure 🙂 Thanks for the info--it worked! 🙂