Connecting Additional Databases¶

Sometimes it is necessary to use an additional database connection to get external data, for replication, backup, or other purposes. CS-Cart has a convenient developer method to establish connections to database hosts different from the default one, which is strictly defined in the core.

Use this methods to establish a connection with a database on an external host:

• db_initiate:

  db_initiate($host, $user, $password, $name, $params = array());
  

Parameters:

• $host - database host.

• $user - database user.

• $password - database password.

• $name - database name.

• $params - array of additional connection parameters:

  • dbc_name - local alias to determine the target database.
  • table_prefix - prefix for the target database table names. Replaces the ?: placeholder.

• db_connect_to:

  db_connect_to($params, $name);
  

Parameters:

• $name - database name.

• $params - array of additional connection parameters:

  • dbc_name - Local alias to determine the target database.
  • [table_prefix] - Prefix for the target database table names. Replaces the ?: placeholder. The default value is table_prefix used in $params in the db_initiate method.

After calling these functions, requests will be addressed to the new database, for example:

$params = array(
'dbc_name' => 'backup',
'table_prefix' => 'cscart'
);
db_initiate('localhost', 'db_user', 'db_password', 'cscart_backup', $params);
db_connect_to($params, 'cscart_backup');

$data = db_get_array("SELECT * FROM ?:products");

In this example $data will contain data from the cscart_products table of the cscart_backup database, which is hosted on localhost.