PHP MYSQL - Tutorial 1 : Install PHP, MYSQL , connect and view the contents of a table

Most of you already experienced by now, its not that easy to install apache, php and mysql
and get started with PHP quickly. you may face more problems especially on windows.
For this, there is wonderful free tool called XAMPP.

XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl
THis is available for Win,Linux, Solaris, Mac OS at : http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

When I used Xampp, the only issue I faced was "apache was not started" , but it was due to a the port 80
was already in by other service in my system.In that case, change the port in httpd.conf
or stop the service( if you do not need it now like tomcat etc.,)

Okay, let me assume that PHP is installed.
This tutorial series is all about connecting to MYSQL Database , and performing varios database operations

First step obviously is to create a table.
You can install SQLYOG( excellent MySQL client) to do the qureying on the MYSQL Database Server installed by Xampp.
or since this is a basic tutorial , you can even type the commands in mysql command line.

Lets get into code now :