Should I Place My MySQL Database Connection Inside A PHP Function?

Question

Is it safe to place my MySQL Database Connection inside a PHP Function so that other PHP functions can use it?

Naftali · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-13 14:16:40Z

9

Yes. it is a good idea.

I even place mine in a class.

class database {

     protected $databaseLink;

     function __construct($mysql_db, $mysql_user, $mysql_pass, $mysql_dbName){
            $this->databaseName = $mysql_dbName;
            $this->database = $mysql_db;
            $this->mysql_user = $mysql_user;
            $this->mysql_pass = $mysql_pass;
            $this->openConnection();
      }

      function openConnection(){
            $this->databaseLink = mysql_connect($this->database, $this->mysql_user, $this->mysql_pass);
            mysql_select_db($this->databaseName, $this->databaseLink);
      }

      function get_link(){
            return $this->databaseLink;
      }

}

Then you can just do:

 $db = new database('database', 'username', 'password', 'dbName');

 //to do a query:
 mysql_query("some query", $db->get_link());

answered May 13, 2011 at 14:16

Naftali

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9 Comments

HELP Over a year ago

Is there a procedural style method?

Marcel Korpel Over a year ago

I also put such a file outside of the web root and include it where needed, so my credentials aren't spit out if one way or another the PHP isn't parsed.

Naftali Over a year ago

@pNUT, so you might be reduced to using functions. is there a reason for not using OOP?

HELP Over a year ago

@Neal The majority of my code is in procedural style and I'm not really knowledgeable on OOP yet.

Marcel Korpel Over a year ago

E.g., if your webroot is /something/www/data/ I put the credentials in /something/www/db_account.php and then use something like require('../db_account.php'); where I want to connect to my DB.

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Michael Berkowski · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-13 14:22:08Z

1

You probably don't want to create it in a regular PHP function. If you will have multiple other functions accessing the db connection in the same script, remember that if you do something like

function get_db()
{
  $db = mysql_connect(...);
  return $db;
}

Then each time you call it, you will be creating and returning a new connection. It may be better to create it once per script inside a class as a Singleton, and have a class method return the database one connection to any function that calls it.

EDIT Neal's answer actually demonstrates the singleton pattern for this nicely. Beat me to it with a more code-complete answer.

answered May 13, 2011 at 14:22

Michael Berkowski

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Comments

Vlasin · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-13 14:23:23Z

0

It is a good thing for performance. Connecting to the database just when the function was called it will result a good performance for SQL server.

answered May 13, 2011 at 14:23

Vlasin

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1 Comment

Naftali Over a year ago

emmmm what? there could be many DB calls like that. that is never good

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