PHP quick start

At the end of this guide, you will have created a simple PHP Hello, World! program that connects to the Memgraph database and executes simple queries.

Prerequisites

To follow this guide, you will need:

• A running Memgraph instance. If you need to set up Memgraph, take a look at the Installation guide.
• A basic understanding of graph databases and the property graph model.
• Composer, a tool for dependency management in PHP. Instructions on how to install Composer can be found here.

note

We recommend using the Bolt driver for PHP.

Basic Setup

We'll be using a very simple PHP script in combination with Composer to demonstrate how to connect to a running Memgraph instance.

Let's jump in and connect a simple program to Memgraph.

1. Create a new directory for your application, for example /MyApp and position yourself in it.
2. Create a index.php file and add the following code to it:

<?php
require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

// Create connection class and specify target host and port
$conn = new \Bolt\connection\Socket();
// Create new Bolt instance and provide connection object
$bolt = new \Bolt\Bolt($conn);
// Build and get protocol version instance which creates connection and executes handshake
$protocol = $bolt->build();
// Login to database with credentials
$protocol->hello(\Bolt\helpers\Auth::basic('username', 'password'));
// Execute query with parameters
$stats = $protocol->run(
    'CREATE (a:Greeting) SET a.message = $message RETURN id(a) AS nodeId, a.message AS message',
    ['message' => 'Hello, World!']
);
// Pull records from last executed query
$rows = $protocol->pull();
echo 'Node ' . $rows[0][0] . ' says: ' . $rows[0][1];

If you need SSL connection you have to replace Socket instance with StreamSocket and enable SSL with additional method.

$conn = new \Bolt\connection\StreamSocket('URI or IP', 7687);
$conn->setSslContextOptions([
    'verify_peer' => true
]);

Library is automatically requesting latest 4 versions. If you need to request other Bolt version you have to call $bolt->setProtocolVersions(3.0);.

3. Run a composer command to get the required library:

composer require stefanak-michal/bolt

It will auto create composer.json file.

4. Start the application with the following command:

php -S localhost:4000

You should see an output similar to the following:

Node 1: Hello, World!

Where to next?

Check out the PHP Bolt driver repository to learn more about using the PHP Bolt library.

For real-world examples of how to use Memgraph, we suggest you take a look at the Tutorials page. You can also browse through the How-to guides section to get an overview of all the functionalities Memgraph offers.