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PHP MySQL Connect to a Database

The free MySQL database is very often used with PHP.

Create a Connection to a MySQL Database

Before you can access data in a database, you must create a connection to the database.

In PHP, this is done with the mysql_connect() function.

Syntax

mysql_connect(servername,username,password);

Parameter Description
servername Optional. Specifies the server to connect to. Default value is "localhost:3306"
username Optional. Specifies the username to log in with. Default value is the name of the user that owns the server process
password Optional. Specifies the password to log in with. Default is ""

Note: There are more available parameters, but the ones listed above are the most important. Visit our full PHP MySQL Reference for more details.

Example

In the following example we store the connection in a variable ($con) for later use in the script. The "die" part will be executed if the connection fails:

<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
if (!$con)
  {
  die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
  }

// some code
?>

Closing a Connection

The connection will be closed automatically when the script ends. To close the connection before, use the mysql_close() function:

<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
if (!$con)
  {
  die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
  }

// some code

mysql_close($con);
?>

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