Question: I'm very new to PHP, SQL I've worked with using Coldfusion but only with very simple queries. In coldfusion to access a specific database

```
<cfquery dbname="blah">

```

I know in PHP I have to use `mysql_query()` and `mysql_connect()`, and here is the code I have, so I understand how to access a server and a table, but not the database. How can this be done?

```
<?php
$sql_branch = "SELECT BranchNum
              FROM Branch WHERE
              branchName = '$_POST[branch]'";
$connect = mysql_connect('students','xxxxxxx','xxxxxxx');
if(mysql_query($sql_branch, $connect)) {
  $branch = mysql_query($sql_branch, $connect);
}
else {
  echo "error".mysql_error();
}
$sql_result = "USE henrybooks;
              SELECT AuthorFirst, AuthorLast, OnHand, Title
              FROM Inventory i, Wrote w, Author a, Book b
              WHERE i.BookCode = b.BookCode AND
              i.BookCode = w.BookCode AND a.AuthorNum =
              w.AuthorNum AND i.BranchNum = $branch";
if(mysql_query($sql_result, $connect)) {
  $result = mysql_query($sql_result, $connect);
}
else {
  echo "Error".mysql_error();
}

```

Also I'm unsure if my Error checking is right, my professor did not really explain how that works exactly.

Answer: 
You probably want to use mysql\_select\_db:

```
$connect = mysql_connect('students','xxxxxxx','xxxxxxx');
mysql_select_db( "blah", $connect );

```
Use [mysql\_select\_db](http://php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-select-db.php) to connect to the database. Most of the mysql\_ functions should be what you are looking for when working with mysql databases.