getting database connection to fail gracefully

Is there a way to get a database query to fail gracefully, so that rather than calling Die(), it can work around the problem? In other words, to do something like: if (mssql_connect($sDBhostname,$sDBusername,$sDBpassword)) { // connection ok - work with it } else { // database down - work around it } // continue with rest of page Rather than using the following, which causes the page to quit in mid flow: mssql_connect($sDBhostname,$sDBusername,$sDBpassword) or die("DATABASE FAILED TO RESPOND."); Thanks Andy Clarke