int ibase_connect (string database [, string
username [, string
password [, string
charset [, string
role]]]])
ibase_pconnect() acts very much like ibase_connect() with two major differences. First, when connecting, the function will first try to find a (persistent) link that's already opened with the same parameters. If one is found, an identifier for it will be returned instead of opening a new connection. Second, the connection to the InterBase server will not be closed when the execution of the script ends. Instead, the link will remain open for future use (ibase_close() will not close links established by ibase_pconnect()). This type of link is therefore called 'persistent'.
See also ibase_connect() for the meaning of parameters passed to this function. They are exactly the same.