How To Connect Login With PHP Script Code Into Mysql Database From A File

when i started to learn about mysql and php, i always had a hard time understainding how to get data from a mysql database using a php file. one fo the first things you must tell mysql is which database to login into. I wrote this sample code for this simple step by step tutorial guide to help you maybe understand more on how you can connect or login to your mysql database using a php file or script.

this is what you will need to know before this works:
1. your database hostname. Most of the time its called localhost but depending on your hosting company, they may have a different name, if you are not sure, contact them

2. your database user name: if you don't know this, contact your hosting company

3. your database user password: if you don't know this, contact your hosting company

4. you database name: this is the database you are going to be using for your script. if you don't know this, contact your hosting company

so lets say i have a database called "user_list", my user name is "dbu2", my user password is "mypassd" and my mysql hostname is "localhost" this is how i would write the connection function of the script:

this is an example you can use to connect to your databases:

     Code:

now that i have the connection, its time to get and display the database information form mysql database tables. to get the informatio out of the database table i will be using the SELECT function in mysql. so lets say the table in the user_list database is called "my_table" and i want to display the "first_name" field, this is how i would do it"

     Code:

so now to put the whole script together:

     Code:

continuing with my example, lets say i have 3 visitors in my database and the database information looks like this:
uid first_name last_name
------------------------------------
1 tommy usiras
2 luke skywalker
3 standford moleculas

this is what my script would display:


     Code:

if you have any question, you can reply to my post here.
Thanks to the folks at www.webune.com web hosting for their support on this tutorial guide.