Want to connect PHP5 to MS SQL SERVER 2005 - php

Question

I have an application that I made with PHP and MSSQL2000, but now want to connect it to a MSSQL2005 database. It's always failing and after doing some research I was told to download the ntwdblib.dll and replace the old one in my PHP directory which I did, but still cannot connect to it. I also uncommented the MSSQL extensions in my php.ini file.
Please can somebody help me with this?

Answer 1

http://www.php.net/manual/en/mssql.installation.php
The MSSQL extension is enabled by
adding extension=php_mssql.dll to
php.ini.
To get these functions to work, you have to compile PHP with
--with-mssql[=DIR] , where DIR is the FreeTDS install prefix. And FreeTDS
should be compiled using
--enable-msdblib .
also
MS SQL functions are aliases to Sybase functions if PHP is compiled with Sybase extension and without MS SQL extension.
<Edit>
Just asking. Do you have a mssql_connect function? Or does the connect fail? If the connection fails, be sure to enable TCP/IP in MSSQL (using SQL Server Configuration Manager). And I also recalled enabling Named Pipes, but I'm not sure it's needed.
</Edit>
As an alternative you could look at COM and ADODB.
Example of COM and ADODB, connecting to SQL Server using Windows Authentication:
$this->m_conn = new COM("ADODB.Connection");
$this->m_conn->CommandTimeout=1200;
$dsn="Provider=SQLNCLI;Data Source=server_name;Integrated Security=SSPI;Initial Catalog=database_name;Application Name=YourAppName - ".$user['name'];
$this->m_conn->Open($dsn);
if(!$this->m_conn)
throw new Exception("Could not start ADO",101);
$this->m_comm = new COM("ADODB.Command");
$this->m_comm->ActiveConnection=$this->m_conn;
$this->m_comm->CommandTimeout=1200;
Then execute a command
$this->m_comm->CommandText=$sql;
$res=$this->m_comm->Execute();
Then extract the data
if(($num_cols=$res->Fields->Count())>=1)
{
$return=array();
while(!$res->EOF)
{
$row=array();
for($i=0;$i<$num_cols;$i++)
$row[$res->Fields($i)->name]=$res->Fields($i)->value;
$res->MoveNext();
$return[]=$row;
}
}
$res->Close();
return $return;
Not sure about speed on a lot of requests, but it's a good way to do it without much fuss, and using DSNs with which you can specify much more than using function parameters.
EDIT:
You can define your own mssql_connect(), mssql_command(), etc, using ADO. That's a workaround if regular mssql extension won't work.

Answer 2

You can also try the build in database wrapper PDO from php.
Here is some information about PDO: PDO
And here is information on the use of MSSQL with PDO MSSQL and PDO

Answer 3

thank you very much for your help.
Actually i did find out a way of making it work
First of all let me start with what i have compared to the system requirements
MY SYSTEM
OS:-Win xP SP2
PHP :- 5.3.5
MSSQL 2005
SQL Native client 2005
Required
Recommended :-Win xP SP3
PHP :- 5.2.4 or later
MSSQL Server 2008 Native Client (on the same computer php is running)
SQL Server Driver For PHP
after upgrading my windows to service pack 3 i then downloaded and installed the MSSQL Server 2008 Native Client
then installed the SQL Server Driver For PHP 2.0 which ask for a directory to save the dll files.
I browse to the php directory and then the 'ext' folder where it copied the dll files to.
Then went to the php.ini file and add these two lines under the Dynamic Extensions.
extension=php_sqlsrv_53_ts_vc6.dll
extension=php_pdo_sqlsrv_53_ts_vc6.dll
Then restart my webserver and booommm....i got it working..
did a test connection to the database and it was succesfull..
Hope this will help others and thank you all for your assistance really appreciate it..
Peace