How do you manage database connections in php?

Question

So recently I've really started to use php actively, and I need some insights on different ways to use database connections.

At first I just used the simple mysql_connect():

<?php
    $connection = mysql_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASS) or die(mysql_error());
    mysql_select_db(DB_DB, $connection);
?>

After a while I created a database class which I started to include and initialize in every file - something like this:

<?php
class MySQL_DB {

var $connection;

function MySQL_DB(){
    $this->connection = mysql_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASS) or die(mysql_error());
    mysql_select_db(DB_DB, $this->connection);
}

function query($q){
    $res = mysql_query($q, $this->connection) or die(mysql_error());
    return $res;
}
}

$database = New MySQL_DB;
?>

And this is what I'm using at the time - and it's working fine - but there are always ways to improve.

So my question to you is how do you manage your database connections?

• Do you use classes?
• What does your classes contain (just the connection or even functions?)
• What practices do you recommend?

Answer 1

I recommend to use PDO. Don't reinvent the weel. It's a nice OO-interface to many database engines. Additionally I create a small function which just inititializes PDO object. So all connection settings can be changed in one place.