Translations:Manual:Database access/13/en

Typically,  is called with a single parameter, which can be the   (for read queries) or   (for write queries and read queries that need to have absolutely newest information) constant. The distinction between master and slave is important in a multi-database environment, such as Wikimedia. This function will return you a  object that you can use to access the database. See the #Wrapper functions section below for what you can do with this Database object.