Persistent database connections
An SQL connection that does not close when the execution of your script ends.
When a persistent connection is requested, PHP checks if there's already an identical persistent connection (that remained open from earlier) - and if it exists, it uses it.
If it does not exist, it creates the connection.
if connection overhead is high, persistent connections help you considerably.
It may (and probably will) change the efficiency of the script, but should not change its behavior!
$connect_id = ifx_pconnect();