mysql_pconnect
allows Apache's mod_php module to do connection pooling. You can still call mysql_close
, but mod_php will not actually close it; it will just invalidate your resource handle. Unfortunately, the module doesn't have any configuration for this, so pooled connections are reaped by the MySQL server via its wait_timeout
parameter. The default value of this is quite high so if you want to take advantage of it, you will probably want to lower that variable.
Connection pooling saves two things: connection setup and MySQL thread creation. Connection setup is very fast with MySQL compared to other databases, but a highly in-demand web site could still see a benefit from reducing this step. The cost of thread creation in MySQL is more dependant on the underlying OS but it can still be a win for a busy site.
Both aspects need to be looked at in the bigger picture of website speed and the load it presents on your database. It is possible to run out of connection threads on the database with a busy enough site using connection pooling. There is also the aspect that your application needs to do its best to leave the connection in a consistent state, as you can no longer rely on closing the connection to do things like unlock tables and rollback transactions.
There is more information in the PHP documentation.