Question

I am trying to fetch all rows within a MySQL table that have a specific input within a particular column.
Here is my table:

ID  COLOR   LENGTH 
--- ------- ------
19  red     10 
3   green   45 
24  blue    54 
4   red     3 
5   red     11

How would I fetch all the the rows that have "red" as the stored value within the "COLOR" column? Can somebody please help?

I am a newbie to MySQL/PHP, so forgive me if this is a stupid question. I tried looking all over but I could not find an answer to it

Answer 1

Since you’re a newbie, I’d like to recommend proper SQL coding. Name all the columns you need, even if you need all the columns that exist in your table. Avoid using the SELECT * ... approach. Develop good practices and habits as early as today:

SELECT ID, COLOR, LENGTH FROM table WHERE COLOR = 'red';

A very basic example of how you’d get things done in PHP:

<?php
# variables you will need. values below are mere examples only
$server = 'localhost';
$database = 'databasename';
$username = 'username';
$password = 'password';

# create database connection
try {
    $pdodb = new PDO('mysql:host='.$server.';dbname='.$database, $username, $password);
    $pdodb->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION); 
} catch (PDOException $ex) {
    printf($ex->getMessage());
    exit;
}

# use prepared statements, for starters:
$stmt = $pdodb->prepare("SELECT ID, COLOR, LENGTH FROM table WHERE COLOR = ?");
$stmt->bindValue(1, 'red')
$stmt->execute();

# store each row into an array
$resultset = array();
do {
    $resultset[] = $onerow; 
} while ($onerow = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_COLUMN));

# to test your resultset:
print_r($resultset); # use this only to display during debugging/testing
?>

Here are links to articles that can help you get started:

net.tutsplus

phpeveryday

phpro