Call to undefined function mysqli_connect on PHP for windows - php

Question

I have the following code:
<?php
DEFINE ('DB_USER', 'test');
DEFINE ('DB_PASSWORD', 'test');
DEFINE ('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
DEFINE ('DB_NAME', 'site');
$dbc = mysqli_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_NAME)
OR die('Could not connect to MYSQL ' . mysqli_connect_error());
?>
If I run this I will get this error message:
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function mysqli_connect()
I'm using PHP for Windows downloaded
From what I have read, you're supposed to uncomment parts in your php.ini file. There is no php.ini in my PHP folder, but only php.ini-development and php.ini-production.
I've tried renaming one of the files to php.ini and uncommenting extension=mysqli, but the problem is still there.
How can I solve this issue?

Answer 1

I was having this same issue, and most stackoverflow answers didn't really clearly address this other step you need to take in setting up your php.ini. If you just uncomment extension=mysqli php still has no idea where any of your extensions are actually located, so it will fail to load them. Locate the section of your php.ini that looks something like:
; Directory in which the loadable extensions (modules) reside.
; http://php.net/extension-dir
; extension_dir = "./"
; On windows:
; extension_dir = "ext"
And then uncomment the bottom "extension_dir" value and fill in the value with the absolute path of your "ext" directory, ie:
extension_dir = "<absolute-path-to-ext-folder>"
Once I completed these two steps (uncommenting extension=mysqli and then adding the absolute path in extension_dir), mysqli loaded correctly

Answer 2

There are two files php.ini-development and php.ini-production
There is no php.ini file in the php directory
so you have to create one
Step1: Copy the php.ini-development into new file named php.ini
Step2: Uncomment ;extension=mysqli by removing ; from the starting of line no: 928
Step3: Replace the ext with exact location of ext folder of php in line no:763 extension_dir = "ext" Ex: extension_dir = "C:/Program Files/php/ext" and save the file
Step4: php -m run in terminal and look for mysqli, it its there then everything is working fine

Answer 3

As the setup say you have to rename one of those 2 you have, if you don't PHP will go with defaults.
So change one of them to php.ini and uncomment the line - this should not really be needed as far as i recall.

Answer 4

For Windows, you can find the file in the C:\xampp\php\php.ini-Folder (Windows) or in the etc-Folder (within the xampp-Folder).
Under Linux, most distributions put lampp under /opt/lampp, so the file can be found under /opt/lampp/etc/php.ini.
If you can't find it. Then you should rename one of those to php.ini file.