Is this a good way of connecting to a database?

[papaface]

Hello,

Can someone tell me if this is a good, and efficient way of connecting to a mysql database?

The page is connect.php and would be included on all php files that require a database.

Is this a good way, or is there a better way of doing it?

<?php
class DatabaseConnect
{
protected $dbname = "papaface_qss";
protected $dbusername = "papaface_default";
protected $dbpassword = "***";
protected $hostname = "localhost";
public $connection;

function __construct()
	{
	$this->connection = mysql_connect($this->hostname,$this->dbusername,$this->dbpassword) or die (mysql_error());
	mysql_select_db($this->dbname,$this->connection) or die ("Could not select the database: " . mysql_error());
	//echo "Connected to the database.";
	}
}
$_conn = new DatabaseConnect();
?>

Thanks, any input would be great

[Gamic]

This is the way I connect. There is only one more feature your connection could have to make it better, a query($sql) method that returns either the entire results, true, or false (depending on the type of query, etc etc). I'm sure that others will have different ways of connecting.

[trq]

If the only intention of said class is to connect to a database (and your not planning on extending it), then your really don't need a class at all.

[Liquid Fire]

That is a start of a database class.  That alone is not very useful but add functions for querying use active record pattern stuff, and then you have something very useful.

[papaface]

If the only intention of said class is to connect to a database (and your not planning on extending it), then your really don't need a class at all.

Yeah, I'm just making one incase I do intend on creating more function for it

[Anthop]

I agree with thorpe.  I would probably just do it functionally and return a connection pointer.

 

If you intend to add more functions, you still don't need to make a class; you could simply just have a bunch of functions in connect.php file to help you manage and mess with your connection.

 

Otherwise, there's really no problem with how you're doing it.  In fact, if you define the __destruct() method to close your connection automagically, then this may actually be better!

(ie: Add the following function to your class:)

__destruct() {
	mysql_close($this->connection);
}

[Daniel0]

In fact, if you define the __destruct() method to close your connection automagically, then this may actually be better!

(ie: Add the following function to your class:)

__destruct() {
	mysql_close($this->connection);
}

 

Database connection will be closed by PHP automatically at the end of script execution. There is no need to do it yourself. Also, you shouldn't close important things in destructors (file handles, database connections, sockets etc.) as you cannot control the order of which objects are destroyed.

 

You should only close a database connection if you need it to end before the script ends. Otherwise there is no point in doing it.

[Anthop]

@ Daniel:  Didn't know that!  There are some nice things about PHP !  My background is in desktop programming languages, especially strict, strongly typed ones like Java and C#, and in those cases, closing your connections is an iron rule of sorts.  (Not as bad as deallocating memory in C, but still pretty strict.)  So, I'm just very used to closing things when I'm done with it and making sure not to use it again.  (I suppose I might get a very slight performance increase for it though?)  In any case, PHP is very different in a lot of ways, so it's been throwing me for a loop .

[Daniel0]

I suppose I might get a very slight performance increase for [closing resources before the script ends] though?

 

Not really. PHP detects when a resource is not used anymore frees it automatically. It's just a matter of who that does it: you or PHP's garbage collector.

[svivian]

My own class that I wrote has a query() function that executes SQL and stores the result internally. I did this to add a bit of abstraction - I also have a row() function that returns the next row from the stored result, so I can do something like this in my code:

while ( ($row=$db->row()) !== false ) { /* do the shiz here */ }

[Stephen68]

Hi!

 

I'm really new to this but do have a question that is not to silly.

 

In the first classes could he not set the values for the connection but make functions that assign the connection information?

 

 

Stephen

[trq]

Hi!

 

I'm really new to this but do have a question that is not to silly.

 

In the first classes could he not set the values for the connection but make functions that assign the connection information?

 

 

Stephen

 

Can you explain what you mean exactly?

[aschk]

I think stephen means something like this:

 

 

<?php

class DatabaseConnect
{
protected $dbname;
protected $dbusername;
protected $dbpassword;
protected $hostname;
public $connection;

function __construct($hostname,$username,$password,$database)
	{
                $this->hostname = $hostname;
                $this->dbusername = $username;
                $this->dbpassword = $password;
                $this->dbname = $database;

	$this->connection = mysql_connect($this->hostname,$this->dbusername,$this->dbpassword) or die (mysql_error());
	mysql_select_db($this->dbname,$this->connection) or die ("Could not select the database: " . mysql_error());
	//echo "Connected to the database.";
	}
}
$_conn = new DatabaseConnect("localhost", "papaface_default", "****", "papaface_qss");

?>

 

This way he could create more than 1 DatabaseConnect for different MySQL connections.

e.g.

<?php
$_conn1 = new DatabaseConnect("localhost", "papaface_default", "****", "papaface_qss");
$_conn2 = new DatabaseConnect("123.456.789.12", "other_user", "some_password", "other_database");
?>

[Stephen68]

Yes that is what I was talking about, I'm sorry I was not that clear in my first post. I guess maybe I should not post after

working a long long day and night.

 

Cheers!

 

Stephen

[Stephen68]

Is there a reason that you are using $_conn instead of say $conn? just wondering...

 

Stephen

[Daniel0]

Prefixing a variable name with an underscore is a common convention meaning it's a private or protected property (or method if it's the method name). He does it outside a class though which is a bit unusual.

[aschk]

Nope, just a copy and paste from your original post

underscore won't make a difference at all (except in php4 i think it means protected member variable, can someone verify that?)

[Daniel0]

As I said, it's just a naming convention used by some people, nothing else. In PHP4 the following would work perfectly fine, but people might get confused:

<?php
class Test
{
    var $_variable;
    
    // some methods
}

$obj = new Test();
$obj->_variable = 'Test';
echo $obj->_variable;
?>