Independent Connection Information

For many programmers, the idea of storing connection information (such as username and password)
directly in the script itself is a little unnerving and rightfully so. Even though, with the correct privileges
assigned to the actual file housing the php script, there would be little concern for the scripts themselves
from being seen. As a best practice, it is wise to create a separate PHP script file that would contain
variables that would contain the connection information and could be used in the PHP script that is actually
connecting to the MySQL server. A typical file containing this connection information would look
something like the example below:
<?php
// MySQL Server Connection Information
$dbhost = 'localhost';
$dbuser = 'root';
$dbpass = 'training';
?>
In this example, the file would be saved as "connect_info.php" and stored in the same folder as our php
script (most likely the htdocs folder of the apache server). Using this file as our source for the connection
information, we would rewrite the script presented earlier as:
<?php
/* Load variable that will be used in mysql_connect */
include "connect_info.php";
/* Connect to MySQL server */
$linkID1 = mysql_connect($dbhost,$dbuser,$dbpass) or
die("Could not connect to MySQL server");
/* Query the MySQL Server for Information */
$query = "SELECT TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'world'";
$result = mysql_query($query, $linkID1);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
print $row[0]."<br>";
}
/* Close the connection to the MySQL server */
mysql_close($linkID1);
?>