How to connect to a database

new ClassName(arguments);

new PDO($dsn, $username, $password);

mysql:host=host_address;dbname=database_name

$dsn = "mysql:host=localhost;dbname=my_guitar_shop1";
$username = "mgs_user";
$password = "pa55word";
$db = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password); // creates PDO object 

First, add these variables to your vars.php file:

$dbServer   = "bscacad3.buffalostate.edu";
$dbUsername = "your-buff-state-username";
$dbPassword = "your-Bannerid-beginning-with-a-CAPITAL-B";
$dbDatabase = "your-buff-state-username";

Add this to your functions.php file:

/*
 * Connect to a database using PDO
 * @param none
 * @return connection object
 */
function dbConnect() {
  global $debug, $dsn, $dbUsername, $dbPassword;
  try {
    $dbConn = new PDO($dsn, $dbUsername, $dbPassword);
    if ($debug) { echo("<p>Connection successful!</p>"); }
    return $dbConn;
  } catch (PDOException $e) {
    $error_message = $e->getMessage();
    echo("<p>Error message: $error_message;</p>");
    exit();
}

Add this to your functions.php file:

/*
 * Connect to a database using mysqli
 * @param none
 * @return connection object
 */
function dbConnect() {
  global $debug, $dbServer, $dbUsername, $dbPassword, $dbDatabase;
  $dbConn = new mysqli();
  // try to make connection
  try {
    $dbConn->connect($dbServer, $dbUsername, $dbPassword, $dbDatabase);
    if ($debug) { echo("<p>Connection successful!</p>"); }
    return $dbConn;
  } catch (Exceptopn $exc) { 
    echo("<p>$exc: " . myError($dbConn->connect_error) . "</p>");
    exit;
  }
}

Description

• To create an object from a class, you code the new keyword, followed by the name of the class, followed by a set of parentheses. Within the parentheses, you code the arguments that are required by the class, separating multiple arguments with commas.
• To create a PDO object that connects to a MySQL database, you use the PDO class with the three arguments shown above: DSN (Data Source Name), username, and password.
• The DSN for a MySQL connection specifies the host computer for the MySQL database and the name of the database. If the MySQL database is running on the same server as PHP, you can use the localhost keyword to specify the host computer.
• The PDO (PHP Data Objects) extension to PHP defines a consistent interface for accessing databases. Since PDO supports most popular databases, this lets you write PHP code that can be used for more than one type of database.
• PDO is included with PHP 5.1 and later and is available as a PECL extension for PHP 5.0. However, PDO doesn’t work with earlier versions of PHP. For those versions, you must use the skills presented in chapter 19.