MySQL Cookbook

Ways of Obtaining Connection Parameters

Problem

You need to obtain connection parameters for a script so that it can connect to a MySQL server.

Solution

There are lots of ways to do this. Take your pick.

Discussion

Any program that connects to MySQL needs to specify connection parameters such as the username, password, and hostname. The recipes shown so far have put connection parameters directly into the code that attempts to establish the connection, but that is not the only way for your programs to obtain the parameters. This section briefly surveys some methods you can use, then shows how to implement two of them.

• Hardwire the parameters into the program.

  The parameters can be given either in the main source file or in a library file that is used by the program. This is convenient because users need not enter the values themselves. The flip side, of course, is that it’s not very flexible. To change the parameters, you must modify your program.

• Ask for the parameters interactively.

  In a command-line environment, you can ask the user a series of questions. In a web or GUI environment, this might be done by presenting a form or dialog. Either way, this gets to be tedious for people who use the program frequently, due to the need to enter the parameters each time.

• Get the parameters from the command line.

  This method can be used either for commands that you run interactively or that are run from within a script. Like the method of obtaining parameters interactively, this requires you to ...