How to Connect a Website to a Database

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How to Connect a Website to a Database
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How to Connect a Website to a Database

Here’s a step-by-step beginner-friendly guide using PHP + MySQL, which is one of the most common and easiest setups for small to medium-sized websites.

✅ 1. What You Need

Component Purpose
Website Files HTML/CSS/JS for structure and design
Backend Code PHP or Node.js to process logic
Database MySQL or similar to store data
Web Server Apache or Nginx to host the site
Hosting Local (XAMPP/WAMP) or online hosting

🧰 For beginners, using XAMPP (includes PHP, MySQL, Apache) is the easiest way to start locally.

✅ 2. Create the Database

Using phpMyAdmin (comes with XAMPP):

  1. Go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin
  2. Click Databases
  3. Enter a name (e.g., mywebsite)
  4. Click Create
  5. Create a table (e.g., users) with fields like:
    • id (INT, AUTO_INCREMENT)
    • name (VARCHAR)
    • email (VARCHAR)

✅ 3. Write PHP to Connect to the Database

Create a file called connect.php:

<?php
$host = "localhost";     // Server name
$user = "root";          // Default user for XAMPP
$pass = "";              // Default password (empty)
$dbname = "mywebsite";   // Database name

// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($host, $user, $pass, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}
echo "Connected successfully!";
?>

✅ Save it in the htdocs folder (e.g., C:\xampp\htdocs\connect.php)

Then go to http://localhost/connect.php in your browser.

✅ 4. Insert or Fetch Data

📥 Insert Data Example:

$sql = "INSERT INTO users (name, email) VALUES ('John Doe', 'john@example.com')";
if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
    echo "New record created successfully!";
} else {
    echo "Error: " . $conn->error;
}

📤 Fetch Data Example:

$sql = "SELECT * FROM users";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
    echo "Name: " . $row["name"] . " | Email: " . $row["email"] . "<br>";
}

🧠 How It Works

  1. HTML sends data (via a form)
  2. PHP processes it and connects to the database
  3. SQL statements (INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE) interact with the database
  4. Results are sent back to the user as HTML

🔐 Security Tips

  • Always sanitize user inputs to avoid SQL injection
    • Use prepared statements with mysqli or PDO
  • Use HTTPS in production
  • Never expose database credentials publicly

🔁 Alternative Stack Examples

Tech Stack Language Database
LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) PHP MySQL
MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js) JS MongoDB
Django Python PostgreSQL or SQLite
Ruby on Rails Ruby PostgreSQL or SQLite

📚 Free Tools to Practice

🚀 Final Thought

Connecting a website to a database opens the door to building interactive, user-driven applications like blogs, shops, login systems, and more.

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