Codeigniter - multiple database connections

Question

I have to retrieve a MySQL database information from master database and then connect to that database, and fetch some records.

I mean that holding one database I want to load another database.

Is it possible with Codeigniter? Right now I'm using following lines of code in my model.

function connectDb($credential)
{

    $config['hostname'] = $credential['server'];
    $config['username'] = $credential['username'];
    $config['password'] = $credential['password'];
    $config['database'] = $credential['database'];
    $config['dbdriver'] = "mysql";
    $config['dbprefix'] = "";
    $config['pconnect'] = FALSE;
    $config['db_debug'] = TRUE;
    $config['cache_on'] = FALSE;
    $config['cachedir'] = "";
    $config['char_set'] = "utf8";
    $config['dbcollat'] = "utf8_general_ci";

    $DB2=$this->load->database($config);

    $DB2->db->select('first_name,last_name');
    $query = $DB2->db->get('person');
    print_r($query);

}

its not working is there any other way?

Answer 1

You should provide the second database information in `application/config/database.php´

Normally, you would set the default database group, like so:

$db['default']['hostname'] = "localhost";
$db['default']['username'] = "root";
$db['default']['password'] = "";
$db['default']['database'] = "database_name";
$db['default']['dbdriver'] = "mysql";
$db['default']['dbprefix'] = "";
$db['default']['pconnect'] = TRUE;
$db['default']['db_debug'] = FALSE;
$db['default']['cache_on'] = FALSE;
$db['default']['cachedir'] = "";
$db['default']['char_set'] = "utf8";
$db['default']['dbcollat'] = "utf8_general_ci";
$db['default']['swap_pre'] = "";
$db['default']['autoinit'] = TRUE;
$db['default']['stricton'] = FALSE;

Notice that the login information and settings are provided in the array named $db['default'].

You can then add another database in a new array - let's call it 'otherdb'.

$db['otherdb']['hostname'] = "localhost";
$db['otherdb']['username'] = "root";
$db['otherdb']['password'] = "";
$db['otherdb']['database'] = "other_database_name";
$db['otherdb']['dbdriver'] = "mysql";
$db['otherdb']['dbprefix'] = "";
$db['otherdb']['pconnect'] = TRUE;
$db['otherdb']['db_debug'] = FALSE;
$db['otherdb']['cache_on'] = FALSE;
$db['otherdb']['cachedir'] = "";
$db['otherdb']['char_set'] = "utf8";
$db['otherdb']['dbcollat'] = "utf8_general_ci";
$db['otherdb']['swap_pre'] = "";
$db['otherdb']['autoinit'] = TRUE;
$db['otherdb']['stricton'] = FALSE;

Now, to actually use the second database, you have to send the connection to another variabel that you can use in your model:

function my_model_method()
{
  $otherdb = $this->load->database('otherdb', TRUE); // the TRUE paramater tells CI that you'd like to return the database object.

  $query = $otherdb->select('first_name, last_name')->get('person');
  var_dump($query);
}

That should do it. The documentation for connecting to multiple databases can be found here: http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/database/connecting.html