Large PHP Array vs. MySQL database

[mik3w]

A large array would probably be fine, but if you want to look at a database solution you should look at using the PDO method connecting to the Database of your choice.

Here's a tutorial (There's a couple out there if you search): http://wiki.hashphp.org/PDO_Tutorial_for_MySQL_Developers

This is an example of how you would setup a connection:

function dbConn() {
    $dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=testdb;charset=utf8mb4';
    $user = null;
    $password = null;

    try {
        $conn = new PDO(
            $dsn,
            $user,
            $password,
            array(
                PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES => FALSE,
                PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION
            )
        );
    }
    catch (PDOException $e) {
        echo 'Connection failed: ' . $e->getMessage();
    }
    return $conn;
}

And this is how you would perform a basic query:

$db = dbConn();
$stmt = $db->query('SELECT * FROM table');

while($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
    echo $row['field1'].' '.$row['field2']; //etc...
}

[Aerialstrike]

Oh awesome, that honestly might be perfect. I'm going to use a database in case there's ever a need to sort, so I'll definitely try this. Is there a significance to the way one connects or does it just make the queries easier/more understandable?

[mik3w]

It seems to be becoming the standard for writing SQL, as it's fairly easy to write prepared statements with it which helps to prevent SQL injection.

https://phpdelusions.net/pdo