Question

I am trying to connect to a sql database with the following code line below:

mysql_connect('localhost','root','');

When i edit the localhost to something else it gives an error. When i edit the password argument to something else it gives an error. This is not unexcepted, but when i edit the username which is root it does not give a error. Why does not it give a error on the username. It seems like i can connect with any username. Have i done anything wrong ?

Answer 1

You will most likely be able to “connect” but won’t be able to actually do anything as far as run a query. If you run

SELECT * FROM mysql.user

you will probably see a row that looks something like this:

Host       User    Password    Select_priv ...
localhost  ''      ''          N

The database has an empty user/password record with no privileges for any table. Therefore, if you connect with a user that does not exist (password will have to be empty, otherwise you will get an access error) you will actually be able to connect but not actually do anything