Question

In php is there a quick way to say if db1 is unavailable connect to db2 instead?

Here is what I’m doing now:

$username="XXXXXXXXX";
$password="XXXXXXXXX";
$database="XXXXXXXXX";
$hostname="XXXXXXXXX";

mysql_connect($hostname,$username,$password);

@mysql_select_db($database) or die("unable to select database");

Answer 1

mysql_select_db will return a boolean indicating if it succeeded.
http://id2.php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-select-db.php

So you'd rather write:
if (!($db = mysql_select_db($database))) {
 $db = mysql_select_db($database2);
}