PHP Tutorial 1

Getting Started with Dynamic Web Sites

Setting Up Your Computer

To follow this tutorial, you’ll need to have PHP, MySQL and a Web server up and running on your
computer. This will be your “testing server,” where you can build and test your database-driven Web pages
The most common approach is to run Apache (a Web server) along with PHP and MySQL, but it’s also
possible, if you’re a Windows user, to use Microsoft’s Web server, IIS. Because this can be a complicated
procedure you’ll find three possible installation scenarios below, ranging from the “Egads, I have trouble
installing Microsoft Office, and you expect me to install a Web server AND a database server” type of
computer user, to the “Back off buddy, I was installing computer systems when you were still in diapers”
computer jock.

Scenario 1: When You’ve No Idea Where to Start

The easiest way to install all of the parts of the puzzle is to download an all-in-one solution—a simple click
to go, one stop shop for powerful Web server software. One choice is the XAMPP project from a group
called Apache Friends—www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html. XAMPP is essentially an Apache Web
server, PHP, MySQL database server, and a bunch of other stuff rolled up into a single package that you
can install on your computer. It’s not a “production” setup—meaning you wouldn’t want to use this
software for really hosting a Web site. It isn’t optimized for working with lots of visitors, and it has some
potential security holes that could be exploited if you put XAMPP out in the wild of the Internet.
However, for a testing server that completely simulates a real world Web server, XAMPP is the perfect
choice. It lets you create databases, build dynamic Web pages, and view them right on your own computer
making it easier for you to build and test database-driven Web sites. The steps are slightly different for
Mac and Windows so they’ll be explained separately:
Windows
1. Download the software at: www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html#641
Select the Installer option under the “Basic Package.” At the time of this writing, a direct link to
version 1.5 for Windows was: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/xampp/xampp-win32-1.5.0-pl1-
installer.exe
You may be taken to a page that gives you a bunch of different places to download from. Just click
one of the download buttons. Once downloaded, the installer works like most Windows installers.
2. Double click the .exe file you downloaded.

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
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 A window opens asking you to select the language you’d like to use.
3. Choose a language from the menu and click the OK button
A Setup Wizard window appears, ready to step you through the set up process.
4. Click the Next button, then click the Install button.
The various files needed are loaded onto your computer.
5. Click the finish button, then when a window appears saying “Install XAMPP servers as service”
appears make a selection.
A service starts up ever time you turn on your computer. In other words, do you want the Web server
and database server to startup whenever you turn on your PC? If you plan on doing a lot of
development, day-in and day-out, you might want to choose “Yes.” Otherwise you’ll find that you’re
starting up the XAMPP control panel (see below) and turning on the servers every time you boot up.
However, if you won’t be building database sites frequently, or you don’t have a lot of RAM in your
computer, you might want to choose “No.” This way you can manually turn on the servers (see “The
XAMPP Control Panel” below) when you need to work on a dynamic site.
If you select “Yes” you will be taken through the same question for the Apache Web Server, the
MySQL database server and the FileZilla FTP server. It’s best to click “No” for the FileZilla FTP
server. You won’t need it for this tutorial, and since this is just a testing server, you won’t need to have
the ability to FTP to the computer—after all, all your files are already on your computer.
6. Finally, launch a Web browser and type http://localhost/ in the location bar.
You’ll encounter a page that lists a bunch of languages; click the language you prefer and you’ll be
taken to a kind of control panel for XAMPP on your computer (see Figure PHP Tutorial 1-1.)

Figure PHP Tutorial 1-1. Once installed, you can view your XAMPP page from
http://localhost/xampp/
Once you’ve installed XAMPP, there will be a shortcut called XAMPP Control Panel on your desktop.
Double-click this to control the servers—you can turn the servers off and on, as well as turn them into
services which launch each time you start up your computer.
To uninstall XAMPP, just go to C:\Program Files\ and delete the folder named XAMPP. That’s it!

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
For more information on XAMPP, included detailed installation and setup instructions visit
www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html.
Mac
1. Download the software at: www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-macosx.html#849
Select the first installer option (at the time of this writing it’s listed as XAMPP MacOS X 0.5.)
You may be taken to a page that gives you a bunch of different places to download from. Just click
one of the download buttons. Once downloaded you’ll have a “package” file on your computer—in
other words a file ending in .pkg, like xampp—macosx-0.5.pkg.
2. Double click the package file.
A window that says “Install XAMPP for MacOS X” appears.
3. Click the Continue button, select your hard drive in the list that appears and click the Continue button
again.
Even if you have more than one hard drive attached to your computer, you still have to select the drive
that’s currently running your system—the installer will put all of the XAMPP files into your computers
Applications folder.
4. Click the upgrade button and when you’re prompted for you administrator password type it into the
password field and click the OK button.
You must have administrative privileges on the computer in order to install XAMPP, or any Web
server or database server.
The installer goes through the process of updating your computer, and after a few seconds completes
the installation.
5. Click the Close button.
Although the software is now loaded on your computer, you still have to start it up. Unfortunately, the
XAMPP project hasn’t supplied an easy way to do this yet, so you’ll need to open the Terminal
program and type some UNIX instructions—don’t worry, it sounds way more scary than it is.
6. Open the Terminal program (for example, by double-clicking its icon.)
The program is located in the Utilities folder in your computer’s Applications folder.
7. Type sudo su and hit return. Then, when prompted, type your administrator password.
This gives you “superuser” powers to start software on your computer that everyone can use. (It also
gives you the power to really mess things up, so make sure you type everything listed here very
carefully and then quite Terminal as soon as you’re done.)
8. Type /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/mampp start and hit return.
This starts up all the servers you’ve just installed. Next, you’ll turn off the FTP server, since you won’t
need it for this tutorial.
9. Type /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/mampp stopftp and hit return.
This turns off the FTP server. And finally, you’ll turn on the latest verion of PHP, PHP 5.
10. Type /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/mampp php5 and hit return.
This turns off the FTP server. And finally, you’ll turn on the latest verion of PHP, PHP 5.
11. Launch a Web browser like Safari and type http://localhost/ in the location bar. When the splash
screen appears, click the language you want to use, and you’ll be directed to a page on your newly
installed Web server (see Figure PHP Tutorial 1-1.)
To stop the Web Server and MySQL server at any time just follow steps 6 and 7 above, and in the Terminal
program type /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/mampp stop and hit return. Unfortunately, at this time,
there’s no easy way to automatically start XAMPP whenever you turn on your Mac, so you’ll have to

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
repeat steps 7-10, whenever you restart your computer and want to use the Web server. There are a couple
of suggestions on the XAMPP forums about some techniques for making this happen:
www.apachefriends.org/f/viewforum.php?f=29
To uninstall XAMPP, all you have to do is delete the folder XAMPP in the Applications folder.
For more information and detailed installation instructions visit www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-
macosx.html.

Scenario 2: I’m Comfortable Downloading and Installing Complex

Software
The do-it-yourself route to setting up a testing server requires visiting the Web sites for each of the
software packages—Apache, PHP and MySQL—and downloading and installing them. There won’t be
detailed instructions here for how to do that, since this scenario assumes you can figure it out yourself. If
you can’t figure it out, just use the XAMPP package mentioned above in Scenario 1. You’ll find all of the
parts of the puzzle on the sites listed below. Because the process varies between Windows and Mac, each
operating system will be discussed separately:
Windows
• Apache Web Server: Visit the Apache Web site and download and install version 2 of the Apache
Web server: http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi
• PHP: Go to the PHP site and download the PHP 5.05 Zip Package listed under “Windows Binaries”
at: www.php.net/downloads.php
• MySQL: Visit the MySQL download page at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/4.0.html and
click the Windows (x86) link to download the installer.
• PHPMyAdmin: For managing your MySQL database, you’ll use this free, Web-based tool. Download
the latest version at www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/downloads.php. You can download a ZIP file
containing all of the files. These are just PHP pages and they’ll go inside your Web documents folder.
It’s usually a good idea to create a folder in the Web site root folder with a name like pma (for
phpMyAdmin) and put all of the PHPMyAdmin files in there.
For a quick overview of the process, you can check out this page: www.webmasterstop.com/86.html

Mac
The Mac already has an Apache Web server built into it. You just need to turn it on and install PHP,
MySQL and PHPMyAdmin. To turn on Apache
1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.
The System Preferences window opens. You can turn on Apache from the Sharing window
2. Click the Sharing button.
This opens the Sharing preferences window which lets you turn on various preferences so you can
share files on your computer with other computers.
3. Make sure the “Services” button is selected, and check the “Personal Web Sharing” box.
Apache is now turned on. To see if it worked, open a Web browser and type http://localhost/ in the
location bar.
• PHP: The easiest way to install PHP on the Mac is to download the PHP installer from Marc
Liyanage. You can find the installer and good instructions here:
www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php/
• MySQL: Visit the MySQL download page at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/4.0.html and
click the Mac OS X Standard installer package to download the installer.

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
• PHPMyAdmin: For managing your MySQL database, you’ll use this free, Web-based tool. Download
the latest version at www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/downloads.php. You can download a ZIP file
containing all of the files. These are just PHP pages and they’ll go inside you Web documents folder.
It’s usually a good idea to create a folder in the Web site root folder with a name like pma (for
phpMyAdmin) and put all of the PHPMyAdmin files in there.

Scenario 3: Dude, I Already Have PHP and MySQL Up and Running

OK. You’re all set, but you should make sure you either have PHPMyAdmin installed
(www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/downloads.php) or you know how to load an SQL file into MySQL
from the command line. You’ll be doing that in the next phase of this setup.

Setting Up the Database and Web Site

To learn Dreamweaver’s dynamic features, you’ll be building a small Web application for the National
Exasperator. In fact, you’ll turn the site’s online store into dynamic Web pages that will retrieve
information from a database and merge it with already-created HTML code.
You’ll need the tutorial files to follow along. You can download them at www.sawmac.com/dw8/php.
Once you’ve downloaded and unzipped the files you’ll have a folder named DW_php, containing a folder
called nationalEx (the root folder for this Web site) and a file called nationalEx.sql (a SQL file that will let
you add the product data to your MySQL database).

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
Putting the Web Pages in Place
To begin, move the nationalEx folder into the Web server’s root folder. If you followed the directions
above and installed the XAMPP versions of Apache, PHP and MySQL, the root folder should be located at
C:\XAMPP\htdocs on Windows, and Applications/XAMPP/htdocs on Mac. (If your Windows computer’s
main drive is not the C:\ drive, the root folder might be located on another drive—D:\, for instance.) Place
nationalEx inside the htdocs folder.

Note for Mac users. When you try to put the nationalEx folder into the Web server’s root
folder, you may encounter a warning box. That’s because you don’t have permission to
add these files to the Web root folder. However, just click
the authenticate button in the window that appears, and
type your administrator password. You will also have to
change the permissions on the files of the nationalEx
folder like this.
1. Navigate to the Applications:xampp:htdocs folder
2. Select the nationalEx folder
3. Choose File→Get Info. This opens the Information
window.
4. At the bottom of the window, click the arrow next to
Details. This expands the permissions area of the
window.
5. Click the lock to the right of the Owner menu (circled
in the image to the right.) This will open another
window that asks for you administration password.
6. Type the administration password and click OK. This
unlocks the lock and lets you change the owner and
group assigned to the folder
7. From the group menu select admin, if it isn’t already
selected, and choose Read & Write from the Access
menu.
8. Select Read only from the Others menu. The Info
window should look like the image to the right.
9. Finally, click the “Apply to enclosed items…” button.
A window will appear asking if you’re sure you want
to do this.
10. Click OK. You may have to type your administration password again.
11. OK. That’s it. Essentially you’ve just opened access to these files to other users
besides yourself. This is important, because in order to display a Web page, the Web
server must be able to read the Web page files.

To make sure you’ve set this up right, open a Web browser and type http://localhost/nationalEx/index.php
in the Address bar. You should see something like Figure PHP Tutorial 1-2.

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
 Figure PHP Tutorial 1-2. The National Exasperator Online Store. At this point, it’s just
an empty shell of a PHP page, waiting for you to turn it into the living, breathing,
dynamic, database-driven monster it is destined to become.

Loading the Database

The data for the National Exasperator store needs to be installed in your new MySQL server. There’s
actually a few steps you’ll need to complete. First you’ll create a new database (you’ll be loading the data
for the store into this); next, you’ll load the data into this new database; finally, you’ll create a new user for
the database (this will be a special account that you’ll use for accessing and updating the database.)
Create the Database
1. In a Web browser type http://localhost/
If you used the XAMPP program as described above, this will take you to the main XAMPP page on
the new server. You’ll use a program called phpMyAdmin to administer the MySQL server.
2. Click the phpMyAdmin link listed under “Tools” to go to the phpMyAdmin main page.

Note: If you set up the Web server, PHP and MySQL on your own, you’ll need to use
your Web browser to go to the PHPMyAdmin folder on your server. This might be
http://localhost/pma or http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ depending on your set up.

3. In the Create New Database box type nationalEx and press the Create button (see Figure PHP Tutorial
1-3.)
This creates a new database on the MySQL server. Next you’ll load a SQL file which will create the
required tables and add the needed data to the database (see Chapter 20 for more on SQL, databases
and tables.)

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
 Figure PHP Tutorial 1-3. The phpMyAdmin main page. Here you can create a new
database, select an already created database to work with and handle many
administrative tasks for MySQL.
4. Click the SQL tab near the top of the page.
This takes you to a page that lets you type in a SQL query (see page xx of printed book), or load a text
file that has SQL commands in it. You’ll do the latter—load a text file that contains all of the SQL
necessary to create the tables and data for the database.
5. Click the Browse button (see Figure PHP Tutorial 1-4. In the File Upload window that appears,
navigate to and select the file nationalEx.sql in the DW_PHP folder you downloaded earlier.

Figure PHP Tutorial 1-4. phpMyAdmin lets you load a SQL file, and execute the SQL
code inside the file. This is a great way to replicate data from another database. In fact
phpMyAdmin can help you export all of the tables and data from any database it has
access to.
6. Click the Go button.

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
 The SQL in the file is executed: four new tables are created and a bunch of data is added. The last step
in prepping the database is to create a new MySQL user that has access to add to and update the
National Exasperator database.
7. Click the link at the top of the page labeled Server: Localhost.
This returns you to the main phpMyAdmin page
8. Click the Privileges link in the middle column of links.
This opens the User page (see Figure PHP Tutorial 1-5.) Here you can add a new user.

Figure PHP Tutorial 1-5. The Users page lists all names of all the accounts that can
access the MySQL databases. You can create a particular username for just a single
database, or let a user access all of the databases on the system.
9. Click the “Add a new user” link.
This opens the Add User page (see Figure PHP Tutorial 1-6.)

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
 Figure PHP Tutorial 1-6. Create a new user to access a database.
10. Type nationalEx for the username and localhost for the Host. In the password field type nationalEx,
and in the re-type box type nationalEx again. The screen should look like Figure PHP Tutorial 1-6.
This will create a user whose name is nationalEx, whose password is nationalEx, and who can only
access them database locally from the server. This means someone out on the internet can’t try to login
to the MySQL server using the nationalEx account; only local access—for example, PHP pages being
run on the same computer—is allowed.
In general, it is a very bad idea to make a password the same as a username, since it doesn’t take much
imagination for a hacker to figure this out and suddenly be in control of your database. But for this
example application, it’s best to keep things as simple as possible, so we can get to the more interesting
stuff (actually using Dreamweaver, for instance!)
11. Click the Go button at the bottom of the page.
The new user, nationalEx, is created and you’re taken to another Web page. Now you need to give that
user access to the National Exasperator database.
12. Scroll down the page to the “Database-specific privileges” section; select nationalEx from the database
menu (see Figure PHP Tutorial 1-7.)

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
 This takes you to yet another page, where you can specify what the user can and cannot do to the
database.

Figure PHP Tutorial 1-7. You can give a user access to just a single database.
13. Check the first column of checkboxes—select, insert, update and delete—and click the Go button (see
Figure PHP Tutorial 1-8.) It’s possible to give a user many different ways of interacting with a
database, including some complex administrative functions which have the potential of wreaking
havoc on the database. It’s best to limit the possible functions to just those needed by the user. In this
case, the nationalEx user can select (meaning retrieve data from the database), insert (put data into the
database), update (edit data in the database), and delete (remove data from the database.)
Wow. That was a lot of work, and you haven’t even gotten to Dreamweaver yet. Don’t worry, all of
the hard work is behind you. Now it’s time to start up Dreamweaver and build the site.

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
 Figure PHP Tutorial 1-8. Limit user access to just those functions needed for the task at
hand. In this case, you will use nationalEx user account in your PHP pages to access the
database for routine database tasks such as adding, editing, deleting and retrieving
information from the database.

Setting Up Dreamweaver
The first step in working on this dynamic Web application is to define a new site. The process of defining a
dynamic site, as outlined below, is slightly different than for static sites, but not any harder:
1. Choose Site→New Sites.
The Site Definition window opens. Use Dreamweaver’s Site Wizard to help you set up this new site.
2. If it isn’t already selected, click the Basic tab at the top of the window.
The first step is to give this new site a name.
3. Type Exasperator Store in the first box and http://www.nationalExasperator.com/ in the second box.
You’ve just told Dreamweaver the name you want to use while working on this site, and the URL of
the Web site. In a real world scenario, you’d type the address of your Web site.
4. Click Next.
The next screen lets you choose whether you’re building a static or dynamic Web site.
5. Select “Yes, I want to use a server technology” and choose PHP/MySQL from the pop-up menu. Click
Next to proceed.
In the next step, you’ll tell Dreamweaver where your local files are and where you intend to put the
files for the testing server.
6. Select “Edit and test locally”.

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
 Dreamweaver provides three ways to work with dynamic Web page files and a testing server.
“Edit and test locally” is a good choice when you’ve set up a Web and application server on your
computer (as you’ve done in this tutorial). Essentially, this means that you’re working on a Web site
located on a functioning Web server. In this way, you’ll preview the pages running on a real Web
server, so you can immediately test out all the nifty dynamic stuff.
The other two options are used when the testing server is located on another computer. This may be a
computer on your local network, or a full-fledged Web server running on the Internet that you connect
to using FTP.
“Edit locally, then upload to remote testing server” is a good option when you can’t run a testing server
on your computer—for example you don’t have administrative privileges so you can’t install a Web
server, but you do have a Web hosting account that provides PHP and MySQL.
The last option should be used when the testing server is on another computer, but you’re the only
developer working on the files. Since the files are available on your local network, anyone in your
company or office who has access to the computer with the testing server can also edit those files.
Your Web pages can end up in an unrecoverable mess if you and someone else are simultaneously
editing and saving the exact same file.
The next step involves telling Dreamweaver where to find the files for the Web site.
7. Click the folder at the right side of the middle of the window; navigate to and select the nationalEx
folder on the Web server. Click Next.
If you used the XAMPP installation recommended in the set up instructions this will be C:\Program
Files\xampp\htdocs\nationalEx\ (on Windows) or Applications:XAMPP:htdocs:nationalEx (on Mac).
You’ve nearly completed the setup.
8. Type the URL of the test server in the box and click Test.
Dreamweaver may have already filled in this box. If the test server is running on your computer, the
URL begins with http://localhost/ and ends with the folder that contains the Web pages. In this case,
the URL is probably http://localhost/nationalEx/.
If you get an error message when you click Test, you’ve probably entered the wrong URL.
9. Click Next.
You may get a warning box squawking about how the URL doesn’t match the testing server. This just
means that in step 3 above you didn’t specify any folder, but in step 7 you said the site was in a folder
named nationalEx. This means site-root relative links (see Chapter 5) won’t work. In a real world case,
you’d probably have your site’s files in the real root folder of your local Web server so you wouldn’t
run into this error. But since this is a made up example, and you’re using document-relative links (see
chapter 5), you’re safe. So click OK to close the warning box.
10. Click No, and then click Next one more time.
If you were planning to move this site onto a Web server connected to the Internet, you would select
Yes at this stage and provide all of the information needed to move your site files to the Internet as
described in Chapter 16. But since this tutorial is just an exercise, you won’t be putting it up on a live
Web server.
11. Click Done.
Dreamweaver has successfully set up your site. You’re now ready to learn about databases and connect
Dreamweaver to the National Exasperator online store database. (You may encounter the same
warning from step 9; just click OK to dismiss it.)

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
Connecting Dreamweaver to a Database
1. From the Files Panel (Window→Files) double-click the file index.php.
The main page for the online store opens. You have to have a dynamic PHP page open, in order to
connect Dreamweaver to a MySQL database.
2. Open the Databases panel by choosing Window→Databases.
The Application panel group opens.
3. Click the plus sign (+) button at the top right of the panel. From the pop-up menu, choose MySQL
connection.
The MySQL connection window opens (see Figure PHP Tutorial 1-9.) In this dialog box you let
Dreamweaver know what database to connect to, where it’s located, and the username and password of
the account that can access the database.

Figure PHP Tutorial 1-9. Setting up a connection to a MySQL database requires just 5
easy steps.
4. In the Connection Name box, type connNationalEx.
You can use any name you want as long as it doesn’t start with a number and doesn’t contain any
characters other than letters, numbers, and the underscore character. In this case, conn is a helpful
indicator that this is a database connection and makes identifying it easier if you ever need to look into
the underlying code of the page.
Next, you’ll tell Dreamweaver where the database is located.
5. In the MySQL server box, type localhost.
In this case, both the Web server and MySQL are set up on the same computer, so when the Web
server runs the dynamic Web pages which attempt to access the database it only needs to look at the
“localhost” where the MySQL Database Server is located.
In many cases, the MySQL server provided by your Web hosting company will also be located on the
same server, so localhost will work when you move your pages onto your Web server. This is helpful,
because it means you can develop your sites locally on your computer, move them onto the Internet
and they should be able to connect to the database without a problem.
However, some Web hosts put their databases on separate machines dedicated just for that one task. In
this case, you would need to edit the database connection, and replace localhost, which works for
development and testing on your own computer, with the address of the MySQL server—this might be

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.
 something like mysql.webhost.com (don’t use http://, or anything besides the server’s address.) Your
Web hosting company can supply this information. Unfortunately this means that you need to change
the connection file Dreamweaver creates (this is what you’re doing right now) to include the new
address. Before uploading your site, open the connection file. Do this either from the databases panel
as described on page xx of this book or by looking in a folder name Connections located in the local
root folder of your site. In that folder you’ll find a file named after the connection name you supplied
when you created the connection—in this tutorial, that’s step 4 above so in this case the name of the
connection file is connNationalEx.php. Double-click this file, change localhost to the address of your
Web host’s MySQL database server. Then upload this file to your site (see page xx for information on
uploading Web files). You can then open the connection file again and change the database address
back to localhost. This will let you continue to work and test on your local computer—just make sure
you don’t upload this file to the Web server, or you’ll wipe out the connection file that you customized
for your Web server, and your dynamic pages won’t be able to connect to the database.
6. Type nationalEx in the username box, and nationalEx in the password box.
This is the MySQL username and password you created earlier when you set up the database.
7. Click the Select button.
The Select Database window appears. This lets you pick which database you wish to connect to. In this
case it’s the National Exasperator’s online store database.
If you get an error instead, check that you spelled localhost correctly, and that you supplied the right
username and password.
8. Select nationalEx and click OK.
9. The dialog closes and nationalEx appears in the Database box at the bottom of the window. Click the
Test button.
A window saying “Connection was made successfully” should appear.
10. Click OK to close the window that appeared when you tested the connection; click OK once more to
close the MySQL connection box.
Behind the scenes, Dreamweaver creates a small PHP file and stores it in a folder called Connections
in your site’s root folder. Whenever you create a dynamic page that communicates with the database,
Dreamweaver adds a line of code pointing to this connection file. (The file’s name reflects the
connection name you typed in step 4—here it’s connNationalEx.php.)

Note: Don’t delete the Connections folder. This folder holds scripts that let your pages
connect to one or more databases. If, while cleaning your site, you throw this folder
away, you’ll break the database connection for all pages.

Copyright 2005, Sawyer McFarland Media, Inc. This material is supplied to readers of Dreamweaver 8: The
Missing Manual as a helpful supplement to that book. In addition, those interested in the book can try out
this Tutorial. Buy the book and you can access the last 4 PHP tutorials as well.