Problem Accessing Custom MySQL Database

Hi,

I’m fairly new to writing WordPress plugins and had a question about accessing a MySQL database.

My plugin consists of some php code that displays data from a MySQL database. When I try to access my database, however, it breaks WordPress. I get errors like these:

[08-May-2008 04:00:32] WordPress database error Table ‘MyDatabase.wp_comments’ doesn’t exist for query SELECT DISTINCT ID, post_title…

It appears that when I try to access my database, WordPress attempts to find its tables in my database as well, instead of looking in the WordPress database.

I need to be able to access my database, but don’t want to break WordPress in the process.

Thank you in advance.

Drake