Cannot Connect to MySQL with PHP, please help!

PHP
1

I just started working through the book “Build Your Own Database Driven Website, 4th ed”, I’ve searched the forums endlessly, but I’m still running into a dead end and fear I cannot continue learning.

Several people in the Questions About Books forums are having trouble with the Connecting to MySQL with PHP section on page 117. The code is here:

<?php
$link = mysqli_connect(‘localhost’, ‘root’, ‘password’);
if (!$link)
{
$output = ‘Unable to connect to the database server.’;
include ‘output.html.php’;
exit();
}

if (!mysqli_set_charset($link, ‘utf8’))
{
$output = ‘Unable to set database connection encoding.’;
include ‘output.html.php’;
exit();
}

if (!mysqli_select_db($link, ‘giggify’))
{
$output = ‘Unable to locate the joke database.’;
include ‘output.html.php’;
exit();
}

$output = ‘Database connection established.’;
include ‘output.html.php’;
?>

I have entered into the ‘password’ parameter my password which works in the Terminal to access MySQL. When I type ‘localhost/connect/’ into my Chrome browser (I’m running MAMP 5.3.6 on a Mac OSX 10.6.8), I get the $output value for the first if statement (Unable to connect to the database server). If I remove the ‘root’ parameter in mysqli_connect function, I get the $output value for the last if statement (Unable to locate the joke database).

If you could help steer me in the right direction I would really appreciate it. I’m loving this book and want to learn more!

2

Try changing the line:

$link = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'root', 'password');

To:

$link = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'root', 'password') or die(mysql_error());

That will show why it is not connecting.

3

You could also try this; (from the php manual)


<?php
$link = @mysqli_connect('localhost', 'fake_user', 'my_password', 'my_db');

if (!$link) {
    die('Connect Error: ' . mysqli_connect_error());
}
?>
4

Thanks for the response! The error message I’m getting is this:

No Data Recieved: Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): The server closed the connection without sending any data.

5

It looks like perhaps, using social_xperiments suggestion, that my username is not ‘root’. I don’t remember picking a username on MySQL. Any idea how I could figure out what it is? Thanks so much for the help guys!

6

If MAMP is anything like XAMPP you should be able to view the SQL users under “Privileges” inside phpmyadmin (or something similar);

7

The problem was with the directory location.