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PHP

Posted by Aaron Lafleur
Aaron Lafleur
10,474 Points

Querying the Database - Having trouble connecting...

This worked fine:

<?php 

try {
    $db = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=shirts4mike;port=3308","root");
    var_dump($db);
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "Could not connect to the database.";
    exit;
}

    echo "YAY!";

?>

This wont let me get past the first try catch block. I get the Exception message, "Could not connect to the database."

<?php 

try {
    $db = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=shirts4mike;port=3308","root");
    $db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE,PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
    $db->exec("SET NAMES 'utf-8'");
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "Could not connect to the database.";
    exit;
}

try {
    $results = $db->query("SELECT name, price FROM products");
    echo "Our query ran successfully.";
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "Data could not be retrieved from the database";
}

?>

Yes, I changed the port number so I could also run Workbench on my machine, and no, I currently do not have a password.

Can anyone see if there is something I have done wrong?

2 Answers

Chris Shaw
Chris Shaw
26,676 Points

Hi Aaron,

The only problem I see is you have quotes around utf-8, aside from that your code doesn't appear to have any other errors.

$db->exec("SET NAMES utf-8");

In saying that anytime you have an exception it's best practice to see what the message was for debugging purposes such as this.

<?php 

try {
    $db = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=shirts4mike;port=3308","root");
    $db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE,PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
    $db->exec("SET NAMES 'utf-8'");
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "Could not connect to the database.<br><br>" . $e->getMessage();
    exit;
}
Aaron Lafleur
Aaron Lafleur
10,474 Points
Aaron Lafleur
Aaron Lafleur
10,474 Points

Hi Chris,

Thank you very much for that valuable tip. I will use that in the future.

Following your advice, and doing a bit of digging, I found that 'utf-8' wasn't being recognized, and that it should be changed to 'utf8'. Once that was done, all was good. I understand it has something to do with the MySQL config file that used that particular syntax.

Thanks again!!