Here we go with another installation and configuration post for out local server;
this time for MySQL, the well known and widely popular free database server.
[You may want to read Installing
Web Server on your PC, Installing
Apache and PHP on your PC and Configuring
Apache Web Server and PHP]
In this post, we’ll learn to set-up MySQL server on our own local server
and see how we can connect to it from our scripts.
Since the last few posts we have been having problems implementing data storage/retrieval
from files, we thought it was the right time to start using database for that
purpose. However before we can use database connectivity from our scripts, we
need to install a database server, we’ve chosen My SQL. In spite of MySQL
database server being free, it has proven itself time and again as the best
database server around. Its free too so there is no point in us looking for
anything else.
OK, let’s start by first downloading
the MySQL package, you may download it directly from mysql-5.0.51b-win32.zip
and unzip it to some temporary directory. You’ll be glad to know that
MySQL comes in a standard Install Shield package and its installation is no
different than other software. That means installing it would be a breeze. You
may proceed with the ‘typical’ installation filling up the details
as asked or choose the ‘custom’ installation which would require
lots of information to be given hence more power and control over how it gets
installed.
Please write down the ‘root’ password that you supply to the installer.
That’d be needed to connect to MySQL from our scripts.
Installation of MySQL is pretty simple, after it getting installed, open the
‘php.ini’ file from the Windows directory and follow the following
steps:
1. Look for a bunch of lines which look something like below:
2. Now uncomment the following lines by deleting the ‘;’ before
them so that they look something like below:
3. Restart Apache.
Now MySQL has been installed and configured completely and is ready to be tested.
Testing
To test the working of MySQL create a PHP script with the following content
and run it:
<?php
$db=new mysqli('localhost','root','-PASS-');
$db->query('create database temp');
$db->close();
?>
If you don’t get any errors on running the above script then it means
you’ve successfully installed MySQL server.
A little about the code:
First line sets up the connection between our script and the MySQL database
server.
We are using the Object Oriented interface, so creating a new object of class
mysqli or MySQL (Improved).
First argument is the host on which MySQL is installed, for local servers it
is ‘localhost’. Second is the MySQL user we’re using the predefined
username ‘root’ and password that we provided while installation.
It’s a BAD idea to use ‘root’ account for database connection
on a real web server.
MySQL understands Structured Query Language. In the second line we’re
querying the MySQL to create a Database named ‘temp’, this line
might probably not work on many web hosts since they require you to create Database
from their own interface and not directly form MySQL.
We close the connection with MySQL in the last line.
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