PHP is a server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language that may be used to create dynamic Web pages. It is available for most operating systems and Web servers, and can access most common databases, including MySQL. PHP may be run as a separate program or compiled as a module for use with the Apache Web server.

PHP actually provides two different MySQL API extensions:

If you're experiencing problems with enabling both the mysql and the mysqli extension when building PHP on Linux yourself, see Section 21.10.6, “Enabling Both mysql and mysqli in PHP”.

The PHP distribution and documentation are available from the PHP Web site.

MySQL Enterprise.  MySQL Enterprise subscribers will find more information about MySQL and PHP in the Knowledge Base articles found at PHP. Access to the MySQL Knowledge Base collection of articles is one of the advantages of subscribing to MySQL Enterprise. For more information, see https://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/knowledgebase.html.

Portions of this section are Copyright (c) 1997-2008 the PHP Documentation Group This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License or later. A copy of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license is distributed with this manual. The latest version is presently available at This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditio\ ns set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0.8 or later (the latest version is presently available at https://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).