In my project I have a database class that I use to handle all the MySQL stuff. It connects to a database, runs queries, catches errors and closes the connection.

Now I need to create a members area on my site, and I was going to build a users class that would handle registration, logging in, password/username changes/resets and logging out. In this users class I need to use MySQL for obvious reasons... which is what my database class was made for.

But I'm confused as to how I would use my database class in my users class. Would I want to create a new database object for my user class and then have it close whenever a method in that class is finished? Or do I somehow make a 'global' database class that can be used throughout my entire script (if this is the case I need help with that, no idea what to do there.)

Thanks for any feedback you can give me.