Mysql_pconnect alternative in order to work

Question

So I know that mysql_pconnect is deprecated, is there a way actually to make this work, I have an old script which in the connection file has the following:

$success = mysql_pconnect ($mysql_host, $mysql_user, $mysql_password);
if (!$success)
    die ("<b>Cannot connect to database, check if username, password and host are correct.</b>");
$success = mysql_select_db ($database);
if (!$success) {
    print "<b>Cannot choose database, check if database name is correct.";
    die();
}

Do I have an alternative to this?

//LE

try {
    $success = new PDO("mysql:host=$mysql_host;dbname=$database", $mysql_user, $mysql_password, array(PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT=>true));
} catch (PDOException $e) {
    die ("<b>Cannot connect to database, check if username, password and host are correct.</b>");
}

$success = mysql_select_db ($database);
if (!$success) {
    print "<b>Cannot choose database, check if database name is correct.";
    die();
}

this gives me "Cannot choose database, check if database name is correct."

Answer 1

You can use mysqli however PDO is recommended for doing queries and plain php nowadays.

$connect = new mysqli($host, $user, $password, $db;
$r = $connect->query('SELECT ...');
$rows = $r->fetch_array(MYSQLI_NUM);

Answer 2

Straight from the mysql_pconnect docs:

Warning This extension was deprecated in PHP 5.5.0, and it was removed in PHP 7.0.0. Instead, the MySQLi or PDO_MySQL extension should be used. See also MySQL: choosing an API guide and related FAQ for more information.

**Alternatives to this function include:

mysqli_connect() with p: host prefix

PDO::__construct() with PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT as a driver option**

Answer 3

The mysql_pconnect function creates a persistent connection to the database. To do that with PDO (the recommended way to access a database in PHP), you can do this:

try {
    $conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$mysql_host;dbname=$database", $mysql_user, $mysql_password, array(PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT=>true));
} catch (PDOException $e) {
    die ("<b>Cannot connect to database, check if username, password and host are correct.</b>");
}

Note that when you use PDO you don't need call mysql_select_db (which is also deprecated). With PDO, the database is part of the DSN (the first parameter of the PDO constructor). In fact, you'll need to replace every call to a mysql_* function with the equivalent PDO method.