Question

Currently, I am dealing with a social network startup. We use php & mysql for back-end development. I have a datamanager.php that have functions which handles the sql connections and queries. I have several functions like signup, login, get_profile, etc.

I have 2 choices for handling mysql connection

1) create a globally reachable $connection variable with mysqli_connect(); and don’t close the connections until I finish all the database operations.

2) create a function namely db_connect() that returns the connection variable in each database functions. Also, in each database function like login, signup, I close the connection with mysqli_close(); and get another connection variable with db_connect();

So, which choice is better for handling mysql connections and why ?

Answer 1

It’s better to keep the MySQL connection open as of performance. Better use a class to handle all mysql connections and somehow pass the instance of the class (i.e. the object itself) to all other functions/classes which need it. Within the class you could establish the connection ONCE and than keep it!