In the previous recipe, we used the shortest way to connect to a MySQL server by hardcoding the credentials required for authentication into the connection method. While this is a fast approach for early development, we definitely do not want to expose our MySQL server credentials to anyone. Instead, we grant permission to access databases, tables, views, and related database commands to specific users.

A much safer way to get authenticated by a MySQL server is by storing the credentials in a configuration file, which is what we will do in this recipe. We will use our configuration file to connect to the MySQL server and then create our own database on the MySQL server.