PHP Connections

List,
    Which way to connect is better for my scripts?

a global
  $db = pg_connect('asdfasdfasdfasdf');
and every function can have
  global $db;
at the top?

or like this?

function db_handle()
{
  return pg_connect('asdfasdfasdfasdfadsf');
}

and everyplace needed use `db_handle()` so I call pg_exec like

$rs = pg_exec(db_handle(),"select everything from everywhere"));

So does that db_handle() make a new connection each time?
I'm really looking for the way to optimise my connection usage.

David Busby
Systems Engineer
busby@pnts.com