Database Connections for PHP Developers

To use a database with a PHP application, you need to create a database connection in Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. This chapter describes how to create the database connection.

For PHP development, Dreamweaver only supports the MySQL database system. Other database systems such as Microsoft Access or Oracle are not supported. MySQL is open-source software you can download for free from the Internet for non-commercial use. For more information, see the MySQL website at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/.

The chapter assumes you have set up a PHP application (see Setting Up a Web Application). It also assumes a MySQL database is set up on your local computer or on a system to which you have network or FTP access.

This chapter contains the following sections:

Connecting to a database

Editing or deleting a database connection

To connect to the sample database provided by Dreamweaver, see "Setup for Sample PHP Site" in Getting Started with Dreamweaver. To learn more about databases and database connections, see Beginner’s Guide to Databases.