I am thinking, is it safe and OK to use db connection in function to return it anywhere in the project? If I want to reuse this project to build another one, I can change db connection only in this function and I don't need to go all over the script searching and changing connection parameter.
function connect_db(){
$db = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=;charset=utf8', '', '');
return $db;
}
Now I can call it anywhere functions.php file is required once, by returning
$db = connect_db();
and then whatever statement follows.
Is it ok and safe?
And how to close connection like this at the end of the page?
$db = NULL;
apparently won't work.
Yes, it is safe and ok to have a single place that creates a connection to your database. I would change your function just a bit though:
<?php
function connect_db(){
try{
return new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydb', 'username', 'password', array(PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND =>'SET NAMES utf8'));
}catch (PDOException $e){
echo '<p>Error connecting to database! ' . $e->getMessage() . '</p>';
die();
}
}
?>
You can read more about the PDO constructor in the documentation.
And to close the PDO connection created this way you do indeed just:
<?php
$pdo = NULL;
?>
Please note that there is really a lot more to be said on this subject. Ideally you would have a class that handles the creation of your PDO object(s). You might want to take a look at this excellent answer from Gordon as a place to start.
Related
I had a problem, which I solved but I don't fully understand why the solution works:
Without the '$conn = null;' statement in the code below the number of database connections was increasing and I got a "too many database connections" error. With that statement it works fine - no increasing nr of dbase connections, but I would have assumed that the '$conn = new Database($dbname[$day]);' statement would set a new database connection, and therefore automatically close the previous one. Obvious not, but why?
for($day=0;$day<365;$day++){
//code to determine $dbname here...
$conn = new Database($dbname[$day]); //Database() is defined class
//code to access database $dbname
$conn = null; //close connection
}//for
UPDATE: the the constructor for the Database class as requested:
public function __construct($dbname) {
try {
if($dbname != ECIS_DB_NAME){ //access to master database is forbidden
$this->_db = new PDO('mysql:host='.ECIS_DB_HOST.';dbname='.$dbname, ECIS_DB_USER, ECIS_DB_PASS, array(
PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_USE_BUFFERED_QUERY => true
));
$this->_db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
$this->_db->query('SET CHARACTER SET utf8');
self::$count++;
}//if
} catch (PDOException $e) {
exit('Error while connecting to database.'.$e->getMessage());
}
}//public function __construct
By unassigning $conn you are removing all references to the class and its __destruct method should be called. See "Is destructor in PHP predictable?".
The __destruct method likely has code to close the database connection. However, you should explicitly close the connection if possible, e.g.
$conn->close();
$conn = null;
If you are only connecting to a single database outside of your tests, you should initialize the database connection outside of your forloop.
There is something, as a newbie, that a I want to understand about About database connections.
I am starting off from a tutorial on PHP which has this structure:
Connect.php:
<?php
$username = "dbusername";
$password = "dbpassword";
$host = "localhost";
$dbname = "dbname";
$options = array(PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => 'SET NAMES utf8');
try
{
$db = new PDO("mysql:host={$host};dbname={$dbname};charset=utf8", $username, $password, $options);
}
catch(PDOException $ex)
{
die("Failed to connect to the database: " . $ex->getMessage());
}
$db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
$db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_FETCH_MODE, PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8');
session_start();
?>
Login.php:
<?php
require("connect.php");
// some code not important for this question,
//that handles login with a session…
?>
various_file_in_the_login_system.php:
<?php
require("connect.php");
// some code that checks if user is logged in with session_ …
// some code that does need the database connection to work
?>
All other files also contain that require("connect.php"); line. It works, but I just don’t know what these connection request to the server – I may not be using the right vocabulary -- end up doing to the server. They are superfluous if the connection is not timed out, are they not?
I found a post which talked about doing a singleton for PDO, and a post which makes me feel like never using persistent connections in my life.
Does this design causes excessive connection churning?
Perhaps servers can handle very many request for connection per second, perhaps a server has its own internal persistent connection mode, or implements connection pooling…
Or the PDO object handle the problem of asking connection too often for no reason…
PDO + Singleton : Why using it?
What are the disadvantages of using persistent connection in PDO
This is what I can recommend for your database connection:
Make a class for the connection:
class Database{
private static $link = null ;
public static function getConnection ( ) {
if (self :: $link) {
return self :: $link;
}
$dsn = "mysql:dbname=social_network;host=localhost";
$user = "user";
$password = "pass";
self :: $link = new PDO($dsn, $user, $password);
return self :: $link;
}
}
Then you can get the connection like this:
Database::getConnection();
The Singleton Pattern is hard to scale - However, I think it will probably be fine for your needs. It takes a lot of load off your database.
I don't think you will be able to avoid the multiple includes.
There is a php.ini setting for prepending a file to every script -> http://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.auto-prepend-file
How about you change to
require_once('connect.php');
in all locations?
Also you should probably remove session_start() and HTTP header logic from a section of code that has to do with establishing a DB connection. This simply does not make sense there.
I realize this is probably super simple but i just started taking peoples advice and im converting a small program from mysql to PDO as an attempt to learn and switch to PDO.
The script is a script that shows you how to build a shopping cart, so keep in mind its focused on a learning audience like myself. Anyway i converted the old script here:
function db_connect()
{
$connection = mysql_pconnect('localhost', 'database_1', 'password');
if(!$connection)
{
return false;
}
if(!mysql_select_db('database_1'))
{
return false;
}
return $connection;
}
to this which does connect fine:
function db_connect() {
//Hostname
$hostname = 'xxx.com';
//username
$username = 'xxx';
//password
$password = 'xxx';
try {
$connection = new PDO("mysql:host=$hostname;dbname=database_1", $username, $password);
}
catch(PDOException $e){
echo $e->getMessage();
}
}
Now in other parts of the script before accessing the database it does this:
$connection = db_connect();
Now i have 2 questions. First is to help me understand better what is going on.
I understand in the original mysql function we connect to the database, if the connection is unsuccessful or the database doesnt exist it returns false. If it does connect to the database then it returns true.
With that i mind i dont understand this:
$connection = db_connect();
Isnt that just assigning true or false to the $connection variable, if so then whats going on in this part of the code.
$price = 0.00;
$connection = db_connect();
if (is_array($cart))
{
foreach($cart as $id => $qty)
{
$query = "SELECT price
FROM products
WHERE products.id = '$id' ";
$result = mysql_query($query);
if($result)
{
$item_price = mysql_result($result, 0, 'price');
$price += $item_price * $qty;
}
}
}
Instead couldn't i just create an include file with the PDO connection and no function and include that at the top of each page i run scripts on. I just don't understand where the $connection = db_connect comes in.
So the 2nd question if my above suggestion is not the answer is how do i return a boolean value from the connection function to return true or false (If i even need to)
There is one essential difference between old mysql and PDO: both these libraries require a resource variable to connect with. If you take a look at mysql_query() function definition, you will notice the second parameter, represents such a resource.
$connection variable returned by your old function by no means contain boolean value but such a resource variable. Which can be used in every mysql_query call.
But while for mysql ext this resource parameter being optional, and used automatically when not set, with PDO you have to address this resource variable explicitly. Means you cannot just call any PDO function anywhere in the code, but only as a method of existing PDO object. Means you have to make this variable available wherever you need PDO.
Thus, you need not a boolean but PDO object.
Here is the right code for the function:
function db_connect()
{
$dsn = "mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test;charset=utf8";
$opt = array(
PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION,
PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_FETCH_MODE => PDO::FETCH_ASSOC
);
return new PDO($dsn,'root','', $opt);
}
now you can use it this way
$pdo = db_connect();
but note again - unlike with mysql_query(), you have to always use this $pdo variable for your queries.
Further reading is PDO tag wiki
As you guessed from the context, db_connect() is supposed to return the connection object. Your converted version doesn't return anything, which is a problem.
With the mysql module, you can run queries without using the connection object - this is not the case with PDO. You'll need to use the connection object to run any queries -
$result = $connection->query('SELECT * FROM foo');
First off, let me congratulate you for making the effort to learn PDO over mysql_*. You're ahead of the curve!
Now, a few things to understand:
PDO is OO, meaning the connection to the database is represented by a PDO Object.
Your db_connect() function should return the object that gets created.
Passing in the parameters required by PDO will give you more flexibility!
So what we have is:
function db_connect($dsn, $username, $password)
{
$conn = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password);
$conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION); //This makes sure that PDO will throw PDOException objects on errors, which makes it much easier enter code hereto debug.
$conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES, false); //This disables emulated prepared statements by PHP, and switches to *true* prepared statements in MySQL.
return $conn; //Returns the connection object so that it may be used from the outside.
}
Now, you may have noticed we aren't checking for PDOExceptions inside of the function! That's because you can't handle the error from inside of the function correctly (becuase you don't know what you would want to do? Would you terminate the page? Redirect to an error message?). So you can only know it when you call the function.
So usage:
try {
$connection = db_connect("mysql:host=$hostname;dbname=database", "user", "pass");
}
catch (PDOException $e) {
echo "Database error! " . $e->getMessage();
}
Further Reading!
The PDO Manual entry - is super easy and super useful. I recommend you read all of it.
So in the interest of not repeating myself, I only want to create one PDO connection and pass it between pages using a session var. But when I setup my PDO connection and set the session var, the var is coming back as not set on my next page?
This is the code on my first page:
session_start();
try
{
$db = new PDO("mysql:host=".$dbHostname.";dbname=".$dbDatabase, $dbUsername, $dbPassword);
$db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
}
catch(PDOException $e)
{
echo "It seems there was an error. Please refresh your browser and try again. ".$e->getMessage();
}
$_SESSION['db'] = $db;
Then this test code on my next page comes back as not set.
session_start();
$db = $_SESSION['db'];
if(isset($db))echo "set";
else echo "not set";
Any ideas??
The connection is fine because if I call a function from the first page and pass along $db as a parameter, the function works without any problems. So why would storing the database var as a session not work? Thank you for any help.
PDO does not allow session serialization. In fact, you should not be able to serialize database connections in the session at all. If it's really necessary to do that, you can do something like this:
class DB {
private $db;
private $creds;
public function __construct($host, $dbname, $user, $pass) {
$this->creds = compact('host', 'dbname', 'user', 'pass');
$this->db = self::createLink($host, $dbname, $user, $pass);
}
public function __sleep() {
return array('creds');
}
public function __wakeup() {
$this->db = self::createLink($this->creds['host'] ...
}
public static function createLink($host ...
return new PDO(...
}
}
PHP closes database connection and free the used resources after the page finishes execution.
Secondly, it's a resource/handler and not really a value.
You can use persistent connections.
$dbh = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test', $user, $pass, array(
PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT => true
));
Your application will behave exactly as if the connection was being reconstructed. So no need for you to serialize the connection and pass it around.
But you do need to be careful and close it when the user session is over so it can be released.
What exactly is your need for persistent connections?
You can use a persistent connection, but it is a bad idea. It ties up valuable system resources, might actually get you kicked off of a shared host, and is actually not all that useful. Just close the connection at the end of each page and start a new one at the next page. If you really, really want it then the setting for persistent connections is PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT which must be set to true on your PDO object.
I have, what I think/hope, is a very simple PHP question. I have made a class to create database connections and issue common queries. I am trying to open two different database connections by creating two objects from the same database class. My code is as follows:
//connect to DB
$dbh = new DB('localhost', 'db1', 'user', 'pass');
//check connection
if(!$dbh->getStatus()) {
echo($dbh->getErrorMsg());
die;
}//if
//connect to DB 2
$dbh2 = new DB('localhost', 'db2', 'user', 'pass');
//check connection
if(!$dbh2->getStatus()) {
echo($dbh2->getErrorMsg());
die;
}//if
However, when I call a method for $dbh to query the database, it attempts to query with the credentials for $dbh2.
My DB constructor is below:
class DB {
function __construct($host, $db, $user, $pass) {
$dbh = mysql_connect($host, $user, $pass);
mysql_select_db($db, $dbh);
if(!$dbh) {
$this->status = false;
$this->error_msg = 'Error connecting to database: '.mysql_error();
return(false);
}//if
$this->dbh = $dbh;
$this->resetStatusAndErrors();
return($dbh);
}//_construct
Simple solution: Use PDO instead. It does exactly what you want, probably has better syntax and implementation and abstracts the interface for DB access.
You're not showing the full class, but the most probable reason is that you are not passing the current connection to the mysql_query() command.
Save $dbh as a property of your class, and add the connection parameter to each mysql_ function that accepts it:
mysql_query("SELECT * from.......", $this->dbh);
That said, if you are building this from scratch at the moment, take a look whether you don't want to use PDO instead. It is better, safer and more flexible than the old style mySQL library.
If you are using the mysql extension (using either mysqli or PDO_MySQL would give both superior performance, more features, etc., so check that for new code), you'll have to store the database handle, and use that on every mysql_* call:
class db {
....
function query($query){
return mysql_query($query, $this->dbh);//notice the second parameter.
}
}