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