Preparatory Manipulations for Working with SQL in PHP

Let's now learn how to work with databases through PHP. For this, first of all, it is necessary to establish a connection to the database server.

This is done using the mysql_connect function, which takes 3 parameters: the hostname (server), the username under which we work with the database, and the password for this user.

If you are working on your own computer, then these will be localhost, root and an empty string for the password (on some servers it might also be root). If your database is on the internet - then this data is provided to you by your hosting provider.

So, let's establish a connection to the database:

<?php
	$host = 'localhost'; // hostname
	$user = 'root';      // username
	$pass = '';          // password
	$name = 'mydb';      // database name
	
	$link = mysqli_connect($host, $user, $pass, $name);
?>

If the access credentials we provided are correct, then a connection to the database will be established. In this case, a special connection object will be stored in the variable $link, which we will use for all subsequent interactions with our database.