1. Nic Shulver, N.A.Shulver@staffs.ac.uk Storing Data on the Server Introduction We are going to look at some working code It writes fixed data into a simple one- table database We will look at the key parts of the code in detail

2. Nic Shulver, N.A.Shulver@staffs.ac.uk Storing Data on the Server Database Structure Test database has one table “tblUsers” What would happen if we named a table “select” or “update” or “values”? The table has just four columns id, an “autonumber” userSurname, text userForename, text userPassword, text

3. Example Code MS Access and OLEDB MS Access and OLEDB <?php //=====================================// // The data we are going to store // Fixed data for this simple test. $sSurname = "Sanchez"; $sForename = "Luis"; $sPassword = "alhambra"; $nID = 90; Standard HTML header Switches into PHP mode Provides some fixed data to work with – Normally this would come from a Form

4. Example Code //=====================================// // creates a new Common-Object-Model (COM) connection object $adoCon = new COM("ADODB.Connection"); //=====================================// // opens the connection using a standard Access connection string try {$adoCon->Open("Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0; Data Source=c:/inetpub/wwwroot/phpTest/test.accdb"); } catch(Exception $e) {die('Sorry - There was a problem with opening the database. '); } try/catch block allows us to catch errors

5. Example Code //=====================================// //NB the SQL Execute WILL FAIL unless the Internet Guest Account //(IUSR_machineName) has read/write/modify access to both the MDB file and the //directory (since it may need to create an LDB temp file). //May also need R/W/M permissions on the system TEMP directory. try {$adoCon->Execute ("INSERT INTO tblUsers (id, userSurname, userForename, userPassword) VALUES ($nID, '$sSurname', '$sForename', '$sPassword');" ); } catch(Exception $e) {echo 'Sorry - There was a problem with adding the data to the database. '; } try/catch block allows us to catch errors

6. Example Code //=====================================// // closes the connection, frees up resources $adoCon->Close(); $adoCon = null; ?> Frees up resources – just good manners here, can be important in bigger scripts

7. Nic Shulver, N.A.Shulver@staffs.ac.uk Storing Data on the Server Key parts $adoCon = new COM("ADODB.Connection"); This creates a new Common Object Model (COM) object based on the Active Database Objects (ADO) Database Connection template This is Microsoft-specific code!

8. Nic Shulver, N.A.Shulver@staffs.ac.uk Storing Data on the Server Key parts $adoCon->Open("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; Data Source=c:/inetpub/wwwroot/phpTest/test.mdb");c:/inetpub/wwwroot/phpTest/test.mdb $adoCon->Open("Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0; Data Source=c:/inetpub/wwwroot/phpTest/test.accdb"); Opens a database, given information about the driver to load (OLE DB version 4.0) and the location of the database Note the forward slashes in the DB file path – works fine but you’d expect backslashes really E.g. Source=c:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\phpTest\\test.mdb

9. Nic Shulver, N.A.Shulver@staffs.ac.uk Storing Data on the Server Key parts $adoCon->Execute ("INSERT INTO tblUsers (id, userSurname, userForename, userPassword) VALUES ($nID, '$sSurname', '$sForename', '$sPassword');" ); Tries to run the SQL in the database May cause an error (which we can trap) Notice the single quotes around string parameters Notice the double quotes allowing “variable interpolation”

10. Nic Shulver, N.A.Shulver@staffs.ac.uk Storing Data on the Server Re-use The highlighted code is worth re-using Makes sense to copy and paste this “boilerplate” code and modify it for your needs Usually only needs the path to the database to be changed try/catch blocks are useful in lots of areas, not just database handling

11. Nic Shulver, N.A.Shulver@staffs.ac.uk Storing Data on the Server Summary We have seen some very simple PHP code Parts of the application presented can be used as “boilerplate code” Database access in PHP is quite simple to do There are pitfalls for the unwary