How to test MySQL connection in PHP and Laravel?

Question

I'm making a PHP application installer (something like Wordpress installation script) and I need to check mysql connection using host name, username, password and database provided by user during installation.

I'm using this code as a Laravel controller method to test connection:

public function TestDatabaseConnection(){
    try {
        $database_host = Config::get('config.database_host');
        $database_name = Config::get('config.database_name');
        $database_user = Config::get('config.database_user');
        $database_password = Config::get('config.database_password');

        $connection = mysqli_connect($database_host,$database_user,$database_password,$database_name);

        if (mysqli_connect_errno()){
                return false;
            } else {
                return true;
            }

    } catch (Exception $e) {

        return false;

    }
}

This code doesn't seem to properly test the connection. Function return value (true/false) doesn't depend whether user supplies db data at all, or if db data is correct/incorrect..

Fils /app/config/config.php contains the following array:

<?php return array('database_host' => 'localhost', 'database_name' => 'dbasename',    'database_user' => 'dbuser', 'database_password' => 'pass');

and it's being updated via form during installation process.

Is there any way to modify this code or maybe you have some other code suggestions?

Answer 1

Your question is:

How to test MySQL connection in PHP and Laravel?

But then you are setting up a standard PHP MySQLi connection like this:

$connection = mysqli_connect($database_host,$database_user,$database_password,$database_name);

Why would you do that? The whole purpose of using a framework is to work within the framework. And something that encompasses these two basic systems concepts:

• Read a configuration file.
• Establish a database connection.

Doing those things is something that pretty much every capable—and widely adopted—programming framework should be able to handle within it’s own structure & using it’s own methods.

So that said, looking at the Laravel documentation on “Basic Database Usage” shows the following. This is placed in your DB configuration file located in app/config/database.php. :

'mysql' => array(
    'read' => array(
        'host' => '192.168.1.1',
    ),
    'write' => array(
        'host' => '196.168.1.2'
    ),
    'driver'    => 'mysql',
    'database'  => 'database',
    'username'  => 'root',
    'password'  => '',
    'charset'   => 'utf8',
    'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
    'prefix'    => '',
),

The example has two distinct DB connections: One for read and the other for write, but that is not how most DB connections for simple projects work. So you can set this instead also using your settings:

'mysql' => array(
    'host'      => Config::get('config.database_host'),
    'driver'    => 'mysql',
    'database'  => Config::get('config.database_name'),
    'username'  => Config::get('config.database_user'),
    'password'  => Config::get('config.database_password'),
    'charset'   => 'utf8',
    'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
    'prefix'    => '',
),

Then to test that connection, you would just do this:

if(DB::connection()->getDatabaseName())
{
   echo "Yes! successfully connected to the DB: " . DB::connection()->getDatabaseName();
}

But that said you are also saying:

I'm making a PHP application installer…

Why reinvent the wheel when PHP build systems such as Phing exist?