I see in the PHP 4.0.6 release notes that mysql_error() and mysql_errno() have been fixed so that you can get error information from them when a connect call fails. (Previously they worked only after successfully establishing a connection, so that you had to use $php_errormsg with track_errors turned on to get connection error information.) I want to write connection code that takes advantage of this, so that it uses the MySQL error functions if they're the fixed versions, and falls back to $php_errormsg otherwise. Does the following look reasonable? if (!($conn_id = @mysql_connect ($host, $user, $password))) { # If mysql_errno()/mysql_error() work for failed connections, use # them (invoke with no arguments). Otherwise, use $php_errormsg. if (mysql_errno ()) { die (sprintf ("Cannot connect to database server: %s (%d)\n", htmlspecialchars (mysql_error ()), mysql_errno ())); } else { die ("Cannot connect to database server: " . htmlspecialchars ($php_errormsg) . "\n"); } } I'm assuming that the proper way to invoke mysql_error()/mysql_errno() after a failed connection is with *no* argument, because when a failure occurs $conn_id won't have any reasonable value and shouldn't be passed to those functions. -- Paul DuBois, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]