How to add Sphider search to my website? “Cannot connect to database”

Question

I downloaded the Sphider search engine and I am currently trying to run it via my localhost. I extracted it in my root folder and made a search bar in HTML:

<div id="searchwrapper">
<form action="../sphider-1.3.5/search.php" method="get" title="eurobytes search">
<input type="text" class="searchbox" name="s" value="" action="../sphider-1.3.5/include/js_suggest/suggest.php" columns="2" autocomplete="off" delay="1500" bgcolor="transparent"/>
<input type="hidden" name="search" value="1">
<input type="image" src="../images/search.png" height="15" class="searchbox_submit" value="search" />
</form>
</div>

but when I type something in I get this error:

Cannot connect to database, check if username, password and host are correct.

I am pretty new to MySQL I read the install.txt, in the sphider-1.3.5 folder, and did the following:

mysql -u your username -p Enter your password when prompted. b) in MySQL, type: CREATE DATABASE sphider_db;

But, when I type in CREATE DATABASE sphider_db I get this:

I don't know what to type now. I tried sphider_db exit but nothing happens?

Sorry if this problem is common sense to most, but I just started playing with MySQL/Sphider.

Answer 1

Have you edited settings/database.php? Sounds like a configuration issue... Here are 2 steps to start troubleshooting:

1. Check what your database name, username and pw are.
2. Make sure you've edited database.php with that information.

Here is the code snippet from database.php you need to edit with your db settings and user credentials (v1.3.5)

/*********************** 
Database 1 settings
***********************/

// Name of database
$database1 = "test";

// MySQL User
$mysql_user1 = "test-user";

// MySQL Password
$mysql_password1 = "test-user-pw";

// MySQL Host
$mysql_host1 = "localhost";

 // Prefix for tables
$mysql_table_prefix1 = "test_";

// Status of database
$db1_set = "1";