Testing database connections

Using $this->load->database(); will throw a error page if the connection failed or for example the config file does not exists. And this behavior can not be overwritten.

From @BenHeadrick first post, that is exactly what he wants to get away from.

... without throwing any warnings. ...

As far as I know, CI does not have a function that only check if it can connect to the database or not, and return true/false.

For the solution though, I would close the connection before returning true/false. And then later when you need to actually use the DB, you connect with $this->load->database(); so you can use CIs query builder and more as usual.

Here is an updated example. I also removed all else statement as they are not needed.

PHP Code:

public function check_database()
{
    
    ini_set('display_errors', 'Off');
    
    //  Load the database config file.
    if(file_exists($file_path = APPPATH.'config/database.php'))
    {
        include($file_path);
    }
    
    $config = $db[$active_group];
    
    //  Check database connection if using mysqli driver
    if( $config['dbdriver'] === 'mysqli' )
    {
        $mysqli = new mysqli( $config['hostname'] , $config['username'] , $config['password'] , $config['database'] );
        if( !$mysqli->connect_error )
        {
            $mysqli->close();
            return true;
        }
        
        $mysqli->close();
    }
    
    return false;
}