Now it's time to access our MySQL database from PHP. To do so, you need to run the MySQL server (unless you're working on an ISP or machine where it's always running). As we've already seen, that involves running mysqld in the mysql/bin directory: %mysqld --console To stop the server, you enter this command in the mysql/bin directory in another command line window: %mysqladmin -u root shutdown To actually connect to the MySQL database, you use the mysql_connect function, providing hostname, username, and password, if any: $connection = mysql_connect("localhost","root","") or die ("Couldn't connect to server"); After you've connected, you use the $connection object with the mysql_select_db function to select a database to work with, which is "produce" for us: $connection = mysql_connect("localhost","root","") or die ("Couldn't connect to server"); $db = mysql_select_db("produce", $connection) or die ("Couldn't select database"); Now you're connected to the produce database. To get all the data from the fruit table, you can execute a SQL query that looks like this using the mysql_query functionnote also that the mysql_error function returns any MySQL error: $query = "SELECT * FROM fruit"; $result = mysql_query($query) or die("Query failed: " . mysql_error()); Besides mysql_connect, mysql_select_db, and mysql_query, other functions are available for use with MySQL; here's a sampling (if you're using another database server, you can find the list of available functions for that server at www.php.net/dbname, where dbname is the name of the server): mysql_affected_rows. Get the number of rows affected by the previous MySQL operation mysql_change_user. Change the logged-in user mysql_client_encoding. Return the name of the current character set mysql_close. Close a MySQL connection mysql_connect. Open a connection to a MySQL Server mysql_create_db. Create a MySQL database mysql_data_seek. Seek data in the database mysql_db_name. Get the name of the database mysql_db_query. Send a MySQL query mysql_drop_db. Drop (that is, delete) a MySQL database mysql_error. Return the text of the error message from the previous MySQL operation mysql_fetch_array. Fetch a result row as an associative array, a numeric array, or both mysql_fetch_assoc. Fetch a result row as an associative array mysql_fetch_row. Get a result row as an enumerated array mysql_field_len. Return the length of a given field mysql_field_name. Get the name of the given field in a result mysql_field_seek. Seek to a given field offset mysql_field_table. Get name of the table the given field is in mysql_field_type. Get the type of the given field in a result mysql_get_server_info. Get MySQL server info mysql_info. Get information about the most recent query mysql_list_dbs. List databases available on a MySQL server mysql_list_fields. List MySQL table fields mysql_list_tables. List the tables in a MySQL database mysql_num_fields. Get the number of fields in result mysql_num_rows. Get the number of rows in result mysql_pconnect. Open a persistent connection to a MySQL server mysql_query. Send a MySQL query mysql_result. Get result data mysql_select_db. Select a MySQL database mysql_tablename. Get the table name of a field |