MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Chapter 19. PHP API

One of the most popular programming language and database engine combinations for the Web is PHP with MySQL. This combination works well for many reasons, but primarily because of the speed, stability, and simplicity of both applications. The first part of this chapter provides a basic tutorial on how to connect to and query MySQL with PHP. Following the tutorial is a reference of PHP MySQL functions in alphabetical order. For the examples in this chapter, I use the database of a fictitious computer support business. This database contains one table with client work requests (workreq) and another with client contact information (clients).

Using PHP with MySQL

This section presents the basic tasks you need to query a MySQL database from PHP. Prior to PHP 5, MySQL was enabled by default. As of PHP 5, it’s not enabled and the MySQL library is not packaged with PHP. To enable MySQL with PHP, you need to configure PHP with the --with-mysql[=/path_to_mysql] option.

Connecting to MySQL

For a PHP script to interface with MySQL, the script must first make a connection to MySQL, thus establishing a MySQL session. To connect to the fictitious database workrequests, a PHP script might begin like this:

<?php
   
$host = 'localhost';
$user = 'russell';
$pw = 'dyer';
$db = 'workrequests';
   
mysql_connect($host, $user, $pw)
   or die(mysql_error);
mysql_select_db($db);
   
?>

This excerpt of PHP code starts by establishing the variables with information necessary for connecting to MySQL and the ...