Creating and dropping databases from PHP

[kennethl]

Is it possible to CREATE and DROP MySQL databases from PHP? I get errors attempting to issue SQL to the database before using mysql_select_db() yet what I'd like to do is create the database, then select it and start working with it, creating tables, inserting data, etc.

[truehand]

It really depends on whether the database has inherent SQL commands that will allow you to create a DB. In the case of MySQL or even PostGres, this should be possible. In Oracle it definately would not be an option.

There are some issues you could encounter though. First, the user you are logged in as under PHP may not have permissions to create a DB. Second, you may need to grant permissions to the DB for access before adding tables, etc.

Here is some code that I found worked:

$dbh = mysql_connect('localhost', 'root', '');
$result = mysql_query('create database testing', $dbh);
mysql_select_db('testing', $dbh);
....

Hope this helps.

[kennethl]

I tried that, and it produced the following error for me:

Access denied for user: 'username@localhost' to database 'dbtest'

But of course, I'm not connecting to the DB as 'root'. I'll have to ask my server admin about permissions for creating databases.

Thanks for your help.