Summary

At this point, you should be able to make connections to a database, perform simple queries, and set the error handling attributes. The error handling attributes that were covered are good to keep in mind, but since the default settings are good for most situations, you should not have to worry about them for now. Just remember where they are so that you can refer back to them if you find that you need them.

If you had problems with this chapter, go back and make sure that you understand the functions and code we covered since connecting to a database is a key concept that you must be able to do to continue on in this book.

Finally, if you are planning on writing code that maybe run on different platforms, don't forget to use the disconnect method. Although MySQL doesn't require disconnect to be used, it is a good habit to into.

Database-handle variables traditionally begin with $dbh, and statement-handle variables traditionally begin with $sth. Using this naming convention allows users who view this code to recognize various handles easily.