What's the 'best' way to connect PHP & MySQL?

[bunner_bob]

I've been using the following connection string:

@$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "user", "password") or die ($db_die_msg);
mysql_select_db('database');

This works fine, but I keep seeing connection strings around in a format similar to this:

$dsn = "mysql://user:password@localhost/database";
$db = DB::connect($dsn);
if (DB::isError($db)) {
	die ($db->getMessage());
}

When I try this though I keep getting an error message - "undefined class name 'db'".

Question 1: what am I doing wrong?

Question 2: is one method better or worse than the other? I like the tidyness of the second option. Is there a good online explanation of the two methodologies?

Thanks!
- Bob

[eoghain]

What you are looking at in the second example is someone using the PEAR database abstraction layer. This is a way for you to build your pages without having to know what database engine your data is stored on.

Personally I've never liked the PEAR abstraction layer it's just way more overhead than I like. I do however like the idea of abstracting the database access from the individual pages. Basically if you think your pages will ever need to connect to a different database engine then you need abstraction. If you don't think they'll even connect to a different database, and you are willing to make all of the changes by hand then don't bother with it.