PDO Connection Test

Question

I am writing an installer for one of my apps and I would like to be able to test some default database settings.

Is this possible using PDO to test valid and invalid

Answer 1

As seen e.g. in the comments at this answer (but hardly anywhere else, so I made it more visible here), the "classic" PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION solution does not always work.

The implementation of PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION is broken, so it seems to be "leaking" in some cases.

For example:

Warning: PDO::__construct() [pdo.--construct]: [2002] No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. (trying to connect via tcp://localhost:3306) in [...] db.php on line 34

The code there:

try {
    $this->pdo = new PDO($cfg['DB'], $cfg['DB_USER'], $cfg['DB_PASS'],
        array(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION));
} catch {
    echo("Can't open the database.");
}

The exception is thrown (and cought: I can see my message).

So, as a necessary workaround, you need to also put a @ (let's call it a "diaper operator" in this case) before new pdo(...) to actually keep it clean.