What steps should be taken to ensure that PHP files can properly access MySQL databases?

To ensure that PHP files can properly access MySQL databases, you need to establish a connection to the database using the appropriate credentials, execute SQL queries to interact with the database, and handle any errors that may occur during the process.

// Establish a connection to the MySQL database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "your_username";
$password = "your_password";
$dbname = "your_database";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check the connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

// Execute SQL queries to interact with the database
$sql = "SELECT * FROM your_table";
$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        echo "id: " . $row["id"]. " - Name: " . $row["name"]. "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}

// Close the connection
$conn->close();