Getting started with MongoDB on Windows and developing it with PHP turned out to be quite easy.
You can create a MongoDB database “in the cloud” for free with MongoDB’s Atlas platform – https://cloud.mongodb.com. No credit card required and you’re up and running in under 10 minutes (most of that time is waiting) after filling in a simple form fill and a few button clicks.
Next you need to setup XAMPP if haven’t already. Follow my post Setting up XAMPP for WordPress Development on Windows for details on how to do that. That gives you Apache and PHP running capability.
Finally you need to install MongoDB drivers for PHP under XAMPP. I use https://www.configserverfirewall.com/mongodb/install-mongodb-php-driver-ubuntu-windows/#install-php-mongodb-driver-on-windows to figure that out. The steps are:
- Download the drivers for Windows from https://pecl.php.net/package/mongodb and extract the archive (select the “DLL” link for the version you want, scroll to the bottom of the next page, then download from the “DLL List” section for your version of PHP and OS architecture.
- Copy the extracted php_mongodb.dll file into <drive>:\xampp\php\ext folder.
- Open XAMPP php.ini and add the line: extension=php_mongodb.dll.
- Restart the Apache server in XAMPP. You’re good to go.
MongoDB Atlas connection string in PHP
If you run MongoDB locally you’ll have PHP code something link this to establish a connection:
<?php
$connection = new MongoDB\Driver\Manager("mongodb://localhost:27017");
var_dump($connection);
?>
If you connect Atlas use a connection string something like:
new MongoDB\Driver\Manager("mongodb+srv://<db-username>:<db-password>@azure-westus-1-fzl9p.azure.mongodb.net/test?retryWrites=true&w=majority");
Where <db-username> and <db-password> are the username and password you created in Atlas.
“azure-westus-1-fzl9p.azure.mongodb.net” is for my the specific Mongo instance – it will be different for you.
The connection string between the double-quotes is the same as was generated when you go into your collection, select the “Connect” button and follow the prompts.