Setting up the database in PHP

In this chapter, we will tell you how to create a database and tables in MySQL and also how to implement into PHP. Before writing the database scripts in PHP, we should have a database to insert the information into and read it from.

PHP DATABASE Setup

Part-5(a) : Setting up the database

I think your mind raises some questions about how to use database information into PHP. Let's take an example : you can tell PHP to go and look into the database for a list of information or you can say for contact information that you would like to see on your website. Your whole contact information stored in the database and PHP scripts bring it from there.

I will show you later in this part how to connect PHP scripts with database. Now, we should concentrate first what is the procedure to construct database.

Database Construction

The best thing about MySQL database is that it has its own standard set up to create database which is contained tables. We can create different - different tables in one database and each table will be separate and contain distinct records in different fields.

The procedure of creation a MySQL database depends on host to host, though you will end up with a database name, a user name and a password. This information is necessary to log in to the database.

Indeed, you can directly login with your username or password, if you already installed PHPMyAdmin on you computer. If you didn't installed than you need to use PHP scripts to create database.

Here, we can create database in two ways :

1.With the help of PHPMyAdmin

2.With the help of PHP Script.

1. With the help of PHPMyAdmin : In PHPMyAdmin we can create the database or table so easily.

Let's see the example below :

Open your PHPMyAdmin by entering the certain URL on your browser that is : http://localhost/phpmyadmin and it will open the database window. It will look like :

Now, it is the time to create the database. I will call my database contact_roseindia. In the Create new database field type the name of your database called contact_roseindia and then click the create button.

The database has been created successfully and you can see that on the left side of the window it shows "No tables found in the database". We need to add a table so that we can insert some data into it.

In the above image you can see that there was one two field. The first one is Create new table on database contact_roseindia field type enter the name of your table, I call my table name tbl_contact and the second one is Number of fields and I add 8 fields for our contact page and then press the go button.

Now, this is the time to add information for our table fields. Enter the following information in your table.

Name	Type	Default	Collation	Attributes	Length	Null	Index	A_I	Comments
id	INT	None	None	None	6	BLANK	PRIMARY	YES	BLANK
first	VARCHAR	None	None	None	15	YES	BLANK	BLANK	BLANK
last	VARCHAR	None	None	None	15	YES	BLANK	BLANK	BLANK
phone	VARCHAR	None	None	None	20	YES	BLANK	BLANK	BLANK
mobile	VARCHAR	None	None	None	20	YES	BLANK	BLANK	BLANK
fax	VARCHAR	None	None	None	20	YES	BLANK	BLANK	BLANK
email	VARCHAR	None	None	None	30	YES	BLANK	BLANK	BLANK
web	VARCHAR	None	None	None	30	YES	BLANK	BLANK	BLANK

When you are finished press the save button. You should see the following information:

By clicking contact_roseindia table on the left menu, we can add information in the database

Now, click the insert button on the top of the screen.

You can now enter your test data. Remember to leave the ID field blank because it will be auto generated.

If you noticed, I entered the two records in the table and then press the go button. MySQL will tell us the records are inserted in the table.

If you want to see the records in your table then click the browse button at the top. The records will be shown like below :

So, we have done it our database creation part with the help of PHPMyAdmin. In the next page I will show you how to display the data in the contact form.

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