PHP Database & API Design

PDO Fundamentals

Connection Setup

// ❌ Bad — silent errors, emulated prepares, no charset
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=app', $user, $pass);

// ✅ Good — exceptions, native prepares, utf8mb4
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=127.0.0.1;dbname=app;charset=utf8mb4', $user, $pass, [
    PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE            => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION,
    PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_FETCH_MODE => PDO::FETCH_ASSOC,
    PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES   => false,
    PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT         => false,
]);