Use PHP with MySQL

How to use PHP with MySQL on your web site

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PHP MySQL Tutorial

Connect to MySQL
Interacting with MySQL makes PHP a far more powerful tool. In this tutorial we will go through some of the most common ways PHP interacts with MySQL. To follow along with what we are doing, you will need to create a database table by executing this command:


CREATE TABLE friends (name VARCHAR(30), fav_color VARCHAR(30), fav_food VARCHAR(30), pet VARCHAR(30));
INSERT INTO friends VALUES ( "Rose", "Pink", "Tacos", "Cat" ), ( "Bradley", "Blue", "Potatoes", "Frog" ), ( "Marie", "Black", "Popcorn", "Dog" ), ( "Ann", "Orange", "Soup", "Cat" )


This will create a table for us to work with, that has friends' names, favorite colors, favorite foods, and pets.

The first thing we need to do in our PHP file is connect to the database. We do that using this code:

// Connects to your Database
mysql_connect("your.hostaddress.com", "username", "password") or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("Database_Name") or die(mysql_error());
?>

Of course you will replace server, username, password, and Database_Name with the information relevant to your site. If you are unsure what these values are, contact your hosting provider.

The first thing we need to do in our PHP file is connect to the database. We do that using this code:


// Connects to your Database
mysql_connect("your.hostaddress.com", "username", "password") or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("Database_Name") or die(mysql_error());
?>


Of course you will replace server, username, password, and Database_Name with the information relevant to your site. If you are unsure what these values are, contact your hosting provider.

Retrieve Data
Next we will retrieve the information from the database table we created called "friends"


// Collects data from "friends" table
$data = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM friends")
or die(mysql_error());


And we will then temporally put this information into an array to use:


// puts the "friends" info into the $info array
$info = mysql_fetch_array( $data );


Now let's print out the data to see if it worked:


// Print out the contents of the entry
Print "Name: ".$info['name'] . " ";
Print "Pet: ".$info['pet'] . "
";


However this will only give us the first entry in our database. In order to retrieve all the information, we need to make this a loop. Here is an example:


while($info = mysql_fetch_array( $data ))
{
Print "Name: ".$info['name'] . " ";
Print "Pet: ".$info['pet'] . "
";
}


So let's put all the these ideas together to create a nicely formatted table with this final php code:


// Connects to your Database
mysql_connect("your.hostaddress.com", "username", "password") or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("Database_Name") or die(mysql_error());
$data = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM friends")
or die(mysql_error());
Print "";
while($info = mysql_fetch_array( $data ))
{
Print "";
Print " ";
Print "";
}
Print "

Name:	".$info['name'] . "	Pet:	".$info['pet'] . "

";
?>

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About the Author
Angela Bradley is a web designer, programer, and owner of www.Identity.st. She has been creating websites for over 10 years and continues to expand her programing knowledge through projects for herself and her clients.