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[kkg]

Just a quick question regarding having a server that extracts user information from / writes information to a database.
Should I practice:
1) Opening a connection when the server starts, close the connection when the server closes
2) Open a connection only when the database needs to be used (possibly frequently) and close it immediately

I'm not really aware of the raw behind a connection with a SQL database, so I'm not sure of the security consequences etc etc
I would assume 1) is a lot faster also.

Note: If you are offering a suggestion, could you offer it for two different situations: where the database is local to the server and where the database is hosted online?

Thanks yy0y0y0 xoxoxo

[IsmAvatar]

It's not unusual for a language that interfaces with MySQL to reuse existing connections when you attempt to connect.
In php, calling mysql_connect() with the same information twice will return the same handle.

It is worth noting, however, that keeping a connection open for too long without querying will cause the connection to timeout. This is usually default of about 8 hours.

Generally, you should open a connection whenever an instance starts needing to access the database. I say instance, because you could have two instances running and they'd need to access the server simultaneously. It's inadvisable to try this multi-instance approach with only 1 super-global connection.

Beyond that, I'm not sure of the overhead of opening and closing a connection. You might want to ask on a mysql forum or forum of the language of your choice.

[RetroX]

The usual approach is to open it and store the handle, then use that:

Code Select Expand

$conn = mysql_connect($server, $user, $pass);
mysql_query($query, $conn);
mysql_close($conn);