how to connect to database in php using object oriented approach

class database
{
private $dbname;
private $host;
private $user;
private $password;
private $status;
private $result;
private $connection;
public function connect($hostname,$username,$password)
{
    $this->host=$hostname;
    $this->user=$username;
    $this->password=$password;
    if($this->connection=@mysql_connect($this->host,$this->user,$this->password))
    {
        $this->status=true;
    }
    else
    {
    echo "cannot connect to server ".$this->host;
    }       
}
}
at the function call just provide 3 parameters according to your database $this is used to access class variables