While not the most frequently-used database type by PHP programmers, there must be one or two out there who use Informix, else the built-in functions wouldn't exist. While there are numerous fuctions for PHP -> Informix connectivity,
documented in detail in the PHP Manual, you only need a few of these functions in order to make a simple connection and select some data:

ifx_connect - opens a connection to the Informix server; requires a database name, username and password.

ifx_query - issues the SQL statement.

ifx_htmltbl_result - places the results of your SQL statement into a nicely-formatted HTML table.

ifx_free_result - frees the resources in use by the current connection.

ifx_close - closes the current connection.

Just for argument's sake, let's pretend that Informix is already installed on your system, and you have a valid username and password for an existing database. Let's also assume that you've created a table on that database, called COFFEE_INVENTORY. The COFFEE_INVENTORY table has three columns: COFFEE_NAME, ROAST_TYPE and QUANTITY.

The rows in the COFFEE_INVENTORY table could be populated with data such as:

French Roast,dark,18

Kenya,medium,6

Ethiopian Harrar,medium,35

Sumatra,dark,8

Columbian,light,12

Now, let's do some PHP. Before you begin, you must know the name of the server on which the database resides, and have a valid username and password for that server. Then, start your PHP code by creating a connection variable:

Test that a connection was established and if it wasn't, print an error message and exit the program:

If you've made it this far, you can issue a SQL statement and hopefully see some results! Using the COFFEE_INVENTORY table, suppose you want to view your inventory, including the name of the coffee and the roast type, with the highest number of bags listed first. Create a variable that holds your SQL statement:

Next, create a variable to hold the result ID of the query, carried out by the ifx_query function. The ifx_query function takes two arguments: the connection and SQL statement variables you've just created.

To format the results currently held in $sql_result, use the very handy ifx_htmltbl_result function. This function uses the result ID variable and HTML table options, such as "border=1".

Finally, you'll want to free up the resources used to perform the query, and close the database connection. Failing to do so could cause memory leaks and other nasty resource-hogging things to occur.

The full script to perform a simple connection and data selection from an Informix database could look something like this:

Please see the PHP Manual for additional Informix database functions, and try using your own tables and SQL statements instead of the examples above.