Returns a MySQL link identifier on success, or FALSE on failure.
mysql_connect() establishes a connection to a MySQL server. The following defaults are assumed for missing optional parameters: server = 'localhost:3306', username = name of the user that owns the server process and password = empty password.
The server parameter can also include a port number. e.g. "hostname:port" or a path to a local socket e.g. ":/path/to/socket" for the localhost.
Note: Whenever you specify "localhost" or "localhost:port" as server, the MySQL client library will override this and try to connect to a local socket (named pipe on Windows). If you want to use TCP/IP, use "127.0.0.1" instead of "localhost". If the MySQL client library tries to connect to the wrong local socket, you should set the correct path as mysql.default_host in your PHP configuration and leave the server field blank.
Support for ":port" was added in PHP 3.0B4.
Support for ":/path/to/socket" was added in PHP 3.0.10.
You can suppress the error message on failure by prepending a @ to the function name.
If a second call is made to mysql_connect() with the same arguments, no new link will be established, but instead, the link identifier of the already opened link will be returned. The new_link parameter modifies this behavior and makes mysql_connect() always open a new link, even if mysql_connect() was called before with the same parameters. The client_flags parameter can be a combination of the constants MYSQL_CLIENT_COMPRESS, MYSQL_CLIENT_IGNORE_SPACE or MYSQL_CLIENT_INTERACTIVE.
Note: The new_link parameter became available in PHP 4.2.0
The client_flags parameter became available in PHP 4.3.0
The link to the server will be closed as soon as the execution of the script ends, unless it's closed earlier by explicitly calling mysql_close().
See also mysql_pconnect() and mysql_close().