Creating a Database Driven Application With PHP

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Lesson 1a: Creating a MySQL Database
Registering a MySQL Server
Creating the Database User
Creating the Wishlist Database
Establishing Connection to the Wishlist Database
Designing the Structure of the Wishlist Database
Creating the Tables
Entering the Test Data
Next Step

Lesson 1a: Creating a MySQL Database

This lesson describes the last preliminary step in developing the Wish List application, that of creating a sample database with test data. To complete the steps in this tutorial, you will need a database in which to store data of wishers. With the NetBeans IDE you can perform all these activities through the IDE interface. Before starting, see the tutorial requirements described in Creating a CRUD Application with PHP - Main page.

The current document is a part of the Creating a CRUD Application in the NetBeans IDE for PHP tutorial.

Registering a MySQL Server

If you do not have a MySQL database server registered in the IDE, or you want general information about using MySQL with NetBeans IDE, see Connecting to a MySQL Database.

Creating the Database User

Before you create a database you need to create its User who will be granted the right to perform any operations on the database. Creating a database User involves:

Connecting to the MySQL server as the root user.
Connecting to the MySQL system database as a root user. This step is necessary to enable running an SQL command for creating a user because you cannot run an SQL command without being connected to any database.
Executing a user creation MySQL statement.
1. Start the IDE, switch to the Services window (Ctrl-5), and expand the Databases node.
2. To connect to the MySQL database server, navigate to the MySQL Server node and from the context menu choose Connect.

The NetBeans IDE connects to the MySQL server, checks for the databases available through the server, detects the system mysql database, and adds the corresponding new node mysql to the Databases tree.

To execute an SQL command, you need to be connected to a database. Because only the MySQL system is available, you need to connect to it. To connect to the system database, navigate to the mysql node and from the context menu choose Connect. If a connection does not already exist, the New Database Connection dialog box appears. The User Name field is by default filled in with root. In the Password field, enter the root user’s password.

If you have connected to the mysql database before, this dialog does not appear. Instead, the new connection node simply appears in the tree.

The New Database Connection dialog box shows the message "Connection established." Click OK. A new node named jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mysql is added to the Databases tree.

Navigate to the jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mysql node and from the context menu choose Execute Command.

An SQL Command window opens. In the SQL Command window, use syntax similar to the following statement:

CREATE USER 'phpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'phpuserpw'

From the context menu, choose Run Statement. If the command is executed successfully, the Status bar shows the message: "SQL Statement(s) executed successfully". If another message is displayed, check the syntax and follow the message hints.

Creating the Wishlist Database

To create the database:

Navigate to the MySQL Server at localhost:3306 node and from the context menu choose Create Database. The Create MySQL Database dialog box appears. Fill in the fields:
- In the Database Name field, enter wishlist.
- Switch on the Grant full access to user checkbox and from the drop down list select phpuser@localhost Click OK.

The "Grant full access to user" function does not always work. If it does not work, connect to the database as the root user and send the SQL query [examplecode]# GRANT ALL ON wishlist.* TO phpuser@localhost #.

A connection to the database appears in the tree. However the connection is for the root user. You need a connection for the` phpuser` user.

Establishing Connection to the Wishlist Database

At the end of the previous section, you created the wishlist database with a connection to the root user. Now you create a new connection for the phpuser user.

In the Services window, right-click the Databases node and select New Connection. The New Connection Wizard opens.

In the New Connection Wizard’s Locate Driver panel, select the MySQL (Connector/J Driver). Click Next. The Customize Connection panel opens.

In the Database field, type wishlist.
In the User Name and Password edit boxes, enter the name and the password specified in section Creating the Owner (User) of the Database (in our example phpuser and phpuserpw respectively). Tick Remember Password. Click Test Connection, and if the connection succeeds, click OK.

The corresponding new connection node is displayed in the Databases tree. Now you can delete the root user’s connection to the wishlist database. Click the jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/wishlist [root on Default schema] connection and choose Delete.

Designing the Structure of the Wishlist Database

To arrange and store all the necessary data you need two tables:

A wishers table for storing names and passwords of registered users
A wishes table for storing descriptions of wishes

The wishers table contains three fields:

id - the unique ID of a wisher. This field is used as the Primary Key
name
password

The wishes table contains four fields:

id - the unique ID of a wish. The field is used as the Primary Key
wisher_id - the ID of the wisher to whom the wish belongs. The field is used as the Foreign Key.
description
due_date - the date by when the wish is requested

The tables are related through the wisher’s ID. All the fields are mandatory except due_date in wishes.

Creating the Tables

To connect to the database, on the jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/wishlist connection, click the right mouse button and choose Connect from the context menu.

If the menu item is disabled, you are already connected. Continue with step 2.

From the same context menu, choose Execute Command. An empty SQL Command window opens.
To create the wishers table,
Type the following SQL query (note that you need to explicitly set character sets to UTF-8 for internationalization):

CREATE TABLE wishers(id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, name CHAR(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NOT NULL UNIQUE,password CHAR(50) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NOT NULL)

You can get a unique auto generated number from MySQL by specifying the AUTO_INCREMENT property for a field. MySQL will generate a unique number by incrementing the last number of the table and will automatically add to the auto incremented field. In our example the ID field is auto incremented.

Click the right mouse button on the query and then choose Run Statement from the context menu.

The default storage engine for MySQL is MyISAM, which does not support foreign keys. If you want to use foreign keys, consider using InnoDB as the storage engine.

To create the wishes table:
1. Type the following SQL query:

CREATE TABLE wishes(id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,wisher_id INT NOT NULL,description CHAR(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NOT NULL,due_date DATE,FOREIGN KEY (wisher_id) REFERENCES wishers(id))

Click the right mouse button on the query and then choose Run Statement from the context menu.
1. To verify that the new tables are added to the database, switch to the Services window and then navigate to the jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/wishlist connection node.
2. Click the right mouse button and choose Refresh. The nodes wishers and wishes appear in the tree.

Note: You can download a set of SQL commands for creating the MySQL wishlist database here.

Entering the Test Data

To test your application you will need some data in the database. The example below shows how to add two wishers and four wishes.

On the jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/wishlist connection, click the right mouse button and choose Execute Command. An empty SQL Command window opens.
To add a wisher, use syntax similar to the example below:

INSERT INTO wishers (name, password) VALUES ('Tom', 'tomcat');

Click the right mouse button on the query and from the context menu choose Run Statement.

The statement does not contain a value for the id field. The values are entered automatically because the field type is specified as AUTO_INCREMENT .

Enter another test wisher:

INSERT INTO wishers (name, password) VALUES ('Jerry', 'jerrymouse');

To add the wishes, use syntax similar to the example below:

INSERT INTO wishes (wisher_id, description, due_date) VALUES (1, 'Sausage', 080401);INSERT INTO wishes (wisher_id, description) VALUES (1, 'Icecream');INSERT INTO wishes (wisher_id, description, due_date) VALUES (2, 'Cheese', 080501);INSERT INTO wishes (wisher_id, description)VALUES (2, 'Candle');

Select the queries, click the right mouse button on each query and from the context menu choose Run Selection.

You can also execute the queries one after another as described in item 2.

To view the test data, click the right mouse button on the relevant table and from the context menu choose View Data.

To get some general understanding of database principles and design patterns, check the following tutorial: http://www.tekstenuitleg.net/en/articles/database_design_tutorial/1.

For more information on the syntax of MySQL CREATE TABLE statements, see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/create-table.html.

For more information on inserting values into table, see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/insert.html.

Note: You can download a set of SQL commands for creating the MySQL wishlist database here.