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PostgreSQL® - Connect with PHP

Stephanie R.
Updated

Learn how to connect to a PostgreSQL® database instance with one of the world's most famous programming languages: PHP.

Cloud Databases allow you to focus on building and deploying cloud applications while OVHcloud takes care of the database infrastructure and maintenance in operational conditions.

You can find an example in the GitHub examples repository.

 

Requirements

 

Concept

A PostgreSQL® instance can be managed in multiple ways. One of the easiest, yet powerful, is to use a Command Line Interface (CLI), as shown in our guide: Connect to PostgreSQL® with CLI.

Another way is to interact directly using programming languages, such as PHP. PHP is used in almost 80% of the websites in the world, such as Facebook, Wikipedia, or WordPress. PostgreSQL® provides PHP drivers, allowing us to connect and manage a PostgreSQL® instance from code.

To do so, we will need to set up our PHP environment with PostgreSQL® drivers, then configure our Public Cloud Databases for PostgreSQL® instances to accept incoming connections, and finally code in PHP to perform a few example actions.

 

Instructions

Set up your PHP environment

To interact with your PostgreSQL® instance with PHP, your development environment needs to be configured with:

  • A compatible version of PHP;
  • PostgresSQL® and PDO PHP extension;

Please follow the official PostgreSQL® documentation to get the latest information.

If you can edit your PHP environment on your own, install extensions and libraries as detailed in the documentation page linked above.

NOTE: If using Ubuntu, you will need to run the sudo apt install php-pgsql command to install the extensions.

We are now ready to learn how to connect to our PostgreSQL instance.

 

Connect with PHP

Using pg_connect

<?php
$host = "postgresql-11xxxx20-o2xxxx53.database.cloud.ovh.us";
$user = "avnadmin";
$password = "K93xxxxxxxxxxxxxaBp";
$dbname = "defaultdb";
$port = "20235";

$dbconn = pg_connect("host=$host dbname=$dbname user=$user password=$password port=$port sslmode=require")
    or die('Could not connect: ' . pg_last_error());

$stat = pg_connection_status($dbconn);
if($stat === PGSQL_CONNECTION_OK){
  echo 'Connection OK';
} else {
  echo 'An error occurred';
}
?>

If you are connected, the result should be like this:

Connection OK

 

Using PDO

<?php
$host = "postgresql-11xxxx20-o2xxxx53.database.cloud.ovh.us";
$user = "avnadmin";
$password = "K93xxxxxxxxxxxxxaBp";
$dbname = "defaultdb";
$port = "20235";

$conn = new PDO("pgsql:host=$host; port=$port; dbname=$dbname; sslmode=require; user=$user; password=$password");
var_dump($conn->query("select datname from pg_database;")->fetchAll());
?>

If you are connected, the result should be like this:

array(4) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    ["datname"]=>
    string(6) "_aiven"
    [0]=>
    string(6) "_aiven"
  }
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    ["datname"]=>
    string(9) "template1"
    [0]=>
    string(9) "template1"
  }
  [2]=>
  array(2) {
    ["datname"]=>
    string(9) "template0"
    [0]=>
    string(9) "template0"
  }
  [3]=>
  array(2) {
    ["datname"]=>
    string(9) "defaultdb"
    [0]=>
    string(9) "defaultdb"
  }
}

 

Go further

For more information and tutorials, please see our other Managed Databases & Analytics or Platform as a Service guides. You can also explore the guides for other OVHcloud products and services.

OVHcloud Managed Databases and Analytics:

  • Grafana® is a registered trademark of Grafana Labs and is used with the permission of Grafana Labs. OVH SAS and its subsidiaries are not affiliated with or endorsed by Grafana Labs.
  • Kafka® is a registered trademark of The Apache Software Foundation and has been licensed for use by OVHcloud, who has no affiliation with and is not endorsed by The Apache Software Foundation.
  • MongoDB® is a registered trademark of MongoDB, Inc.
  • MySQL® is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
  • PostgreSQL® is a registered trademark of the PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada.

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