PHP and MySQL Part 2

There are 2 methods of using mysqli. One method of using it is by object orientated and another way is by procedural.

Personally, I prefer to use object orientated.

Here is a function which I have created to connect to the database. It will return an Object if it connects successfully. If not, it will return a false which indicates that the connection failed.
$result = new mysqli ('hostname','username','password','database_name');

The 4 string values to provide mysqli are the hostname (such as localhost), username, password and the name of the database. The username and the password must be registered as a user of the database and have sufficient privileges to access the database.

Below is a simple database connect function.

We are interested to perform a query on the database so that we can obtain the results we need. How do we do so? For the object orientated method, mysqli->query will return an Object. The object will contain certain attributes such as num_rows (no. of rows), error, close, etc. For a whole list of available attributes, you can read here.

Below is a simple query function.

Now, we are able to connect to the database and perform a simple query using PHP. I will try to include some MySQL tutorials soon. =)