<?php
# Fill our vars and run on cli
# $ php -f db-connect-test.php
$dbname = 'database';
$dbuser = 'username';
$dbpass = 'password';
$dbhost = 'host';

$connect = mysqli_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass) or die("Unable to Connect to '$dbhost'");
mysqli_select_db($connect, $dbname) or die("Could not open the db '$dbname'");

$test_query = "SHOW TABLES FROM $dbname";
$result = mysqli_query($connect, $test_query);
$tblCnt = 0;

while($tbl = mysqli_fetch_array($result)) {
  $tblCnt++;
  #echo $tbl[0]."<br />\n";
}

if (!$tblCnt) {
  echo "There are no tables<br />\n";
} else {
  echo "There are $tblCnt tables<br />\n";
}