You can connect with or without a Data Source Name (DSN). Using a DSN provides you with an easy way to manage the data source connection and also provide you with access to sources other than the database platforms previously mentioned. In the example below, we are connecting to a data source and query a table called employees. The results are simply displayed within a table element. Depending on how you connect to the data source will determine the value you assign to the variable cstr. In the example below we are connecting to a MySQL database, using a non-DSN connection string. However, if you connect via DSN, the string may look something like this:
