Better Practice?

[astralaaron]

Say you have a function, db_connection() and you have some other functions that query the database, for this example just queryDB();Which would be considered better practice?db_connection();queryDB();or inside of the queryDB function call the db_connection?queryDB(){db_connection();}

[Redroest]

I recommand making the db_connection a object:$connection = db_connection();

function queryDB($connection){}

or

function queryDB(){  global $connection;}

[astralaaron]

why even pass the connection into the function if you made it into an object above? it works either way in my test.

[justsomeguy]

Ideally you would have 1 database class which would include the connection as a property, instead of a series of functions. Your query method of the class can check to see if a connection was already made and make one if not, or you can pass the login credentials to the class constructor and connect at that time.

[Redroest]

I am using the mysqli version of what justsomeguy tells. The below example explains why this is a great tool:database.php

<?php//Database connection$db = array (  'host' => $db_host,  'user' => $db_user,  'pass' => $db_pass,  'dbname' => $db_name);//Create the connection as object$mysqli = new mysqli($db['host'], $db['user'], $db['pass'], $db['dbname']);if(mysqli_connect_errno()){  trigger_error('Fout bij verbinding: '.$mysqli->error);}?>

part of my main.php file that handles a part of the configuration

<?php//Database connection vars$db_host = 'xxxx';$db_user = 'xxxx';$db_pass = 'xxxx';$db_name = 'xxxx';//Include the database connectioninclude_once('database.php');//Select the defaultsettings from the configtablefunction configuration(){  $sql = "SELECT * FROM table_xxxxx WHERE xxxxID=xxx";  if(!$Config = $GLOBAL['mysqli']->query($sql))  {	trigger_error('Fout in query: '.$GLOBAL['mysqli']->error);  }  else  {	if($config = $Config->fetch_assoc())	{		  $theme = $config['DefaultTheme'];	  $language = $config['DefaultLanguage'];	}  }}?>

As you can see, the class takes care of the connection while I don't have to worry about any extra coding to include the connection to my functions. The way I explaned in my first example just uses pure functions and thats also a way to handle stuff and still keep things flexible. In your way (using a function in a function) it cannot be possible to add a new parameter to your db_connection(); like db_connection($par); without changing all the function calls in the rest of your files. Its just a way to keep things flexible and it will safe time in the long run when you have to update/change things.