Concrete 5.7 switch database on the fly

Question

I want to write the form result to another database.

In Concrete 5.6 you can switch to another database on the fly. I am unable to find out how this works in Concrete 5.7.

The 5.6 way

$db = Loader::db( 'newserver', 'newuser', 'newpassword', 'newdatabase', true);

It is possible to use the legacy Loader in Concrete 5.7. I tried to connect to the database but in the error you can see that it is still trying to use the default database.

$db = Database::get();
//tried this
$db = Loader::db('localhost', 'root', 'root', 'db_new', true);
//error
//db_original.db_new does not exist

Answer 1

What I recommend is that you set up another connection in application/config/database.php. So your config might then look something like this:

<?php

return array(
    'default-connection' => 'concrete',
    'connections' => array(
        'concrete' => array(
            'driver' => 'c5_pdo_mysql',
            'server' => 'localhost',
            'database' => 'c5',
            'username' => 'uuuuuuuuuuu',
            'password' => 'ppppppppppp',
            'charset' => 'utf8'
        ),

        'my_new_db' => array(
            'driver' => 'c5_pdo_mysql',
            'server' => 'localhost',
            'database' => 'db_new',
            'username' => 'uuuuuuuuuuu',
            'password' => 'ppppppppppp',
            'charset' => 'utf8'
        )
    )
);

Then, when you are using your code you can access that connection at any time by doing the following:

//get the default connection
$newDb = \Core::make('database')->connection();
//get the new connection
$newDb = \Core::make('database')->connection('my_new_db');

EDIT: For those looking to change the type of database driver you will need to actually map a driver implementation in your config, which might look something like this:

<?php

return array(
    'default-connection' => 'concrete',

    'drivers' => array(
        'pdo_sqlsrv' => 'Doctrine\DBAL\Driver\SQLSrv\Driver'
    ),

    'connections' => array(
        'concrete' => array(
            'driver' => 'c5_pdo_mysql',
            'server' => 'localhost',
            'database' => 'c5',
            'username' => 'uuuuuuuuu',
            'password' => 'pppppppppp',
            'charset' => 'utf8',
        ),

        'my_new_db' => array(
            'driver' => 'pdo_sqlsrv',
            'server' => 'mydatabaseserver.mycompany.com',
            'database' => 'my_new_db',
            'username' => 'uuuuuuuuuuu',
            'password' => 'ppppppppppp',
        )
    ),
);