PHP Connection with a MySQL

 PHP 5 and later can work with a MySQL database using:

• MySQLi extension (the "i" stands for improved)
• PDO (PHP Data Objects)

Earlier versions of PHP used the MySQL extension. However, this extension was deprecated in 2012.

Should I Use MySQLi or PDO?

If you need a short answer, it would be "Whatever you like".

Both MySQLi and PDO have their advantages:

PDO will work on 12 different database systems, whereas MySQLi will only work with MySQL databases.

So, if you have to switch your project to use another database, PDO makes the process easy. You only have to change the connection string and a few queries. With MySQLi, you will need to rewrite the entire code - queries included.

Both are object-oriented, but MySQLi also offers a procedural API.

Both support Prepared Statements. Prepared Statements protect from SQL injection, and are very important for web application security.

Open a Connection to MySQL

Before we can access data in the MySQL database, we need to be able to connect to the server:

<?php
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";

// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
  die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}
echo "Connected successfully";

?>

Close the Connection

The connection will be closed automatically when the script ends. To close the connection before, use the following:

$conn->close();