PHP MySQL :: Select Data From a Database Table

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.

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Select Data From a Database Table

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.

Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name

To learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.

To get PHP to execute the statement above we must use the mysql_query() function. This function is used to send a query or command to a MySQL connection.

Example

The following example selects all the data stored in the "Persons" table (The * character selects all the data in the table):

<?php $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123"); if (!$con)   {   die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());   } mysql_select_db("my_db", $con); $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Persons"); while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))   {   echo $row['FirstName'] . " " . $row['LastName'];   echo "<br />";   } mysql_close($con); ?>

The example above stores the data returned by the mysql_query() function in the $result variable.

Next, we use the mysql_fetch_array() function to return the first row from the recordset as an array. Each call to mysql_fetch_array() returns the next row in the recordset. The while loop loops through all the records in the recordset. To print the value of each row, we use the PHP $row variable ($row['FirstName'] and $row['LastName']).

The output of the code above will be:

Peter Griffin Glenn Quagmire

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Display the Result in an HTML Table

The following example selects the same data as the example above, but will display the data in an HTML table:

<?php $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123"); if (!$con)   {   die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());   } mysql_select_db("my_db", $con); $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Persons"); echo "<table border='1'> <tr> <th>Firstname</th> <th>Lastname</th> </tr>"; while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))   {   echo "<tr>";   echo "<td>" . $row['FirstName'] . "</td>";   echo "<td>" . $row['LastName'] . "</td>";   echo "</tr>";   } echo "</table>"; mysql_close($con); ?>

The output of the code above will be:

Firstname	Lastname
Glenn	Quagmire
Peter	Griffin

PHP MySQL :: Insert Data Into a Database Table

The INSERT INTO statement is used to insert new records in a table.

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Insert Data Into a Database Table

The INSERT INTO statement is used to add new records to a database table.

Syntax

It is possible to write the INSERT INTO statement in two forms.

The first form doesn't specify the column names where the data will be inserted, only their values:

INSERT INTO table_name VALUES (value1, value2, value3,...)

The second form specifies both the column names and the values to be inserted:

INSERT INTO table_name (column1, column2, column3,...) VALUES (value1, value2, value3,...)

To learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.

To get PHP to execute the statements above we must use the mysql_query() function. This function is used to send a query or command to a MySQL connection.

Example

In the previous chapter we created a table named "Persons", with three columns; "Firstname", "Lastname" and "Age". We will use the same table in this example. The following example adds two new records to the "Persons" table:

<?php $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123"); if (!$con)   {   die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());   } mysql_select_db("my_db", $con); mysql_query("INSERT INTO Persons (FirstName, LastName, Age) VALUES ('Peter', 'Griffin', '35')"); mysql_query("INSERT INTO Persons (FirstName, LastName, Age) VALUES ('Glenn', 'Quagmire', '33')"); mysql_close($con); ?>

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Insert Data From a Form Into a Database

Now we will create an HTML form that can be used to add new records to the "Persons" table.

Here is the HTML form:

<html> <body> <form action="insert.php" method="post"> Firstname: <input type="text" name="firstname" /> Lastname: <input type="text" name="lastname" /> Age: <input type="text" name="age" /> <input type="submit" /> </form> </body> </html>

When a user clicks the submit button in the HTML form in the example above, the form data is sent to "insert.php".

The "insert.php" file connects to a database, and retrieves the values from the form with the PHP $_POST variables.

Then, the mysql_query() function executes the INSERT INTO statement, and a new record will be added to the "Persons" table.

Here is the "insert.php" page:

<?php $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123"); if (!$con)   {   die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());   } mysql_select_db("my_db", $con); $sql="INSERT INTO Persons (FirstName, LastName, Age) VALUES ('$_POST[firstname]','$_POST[lastname]','$_POST[age]')"; if (!mysql_query($sql,$con))   {   die('Error: ' . mysql_error());   } echo "1 record added"; mysql_close($con) ?>