Question

I am trying to select data from a MySQL table, but I get one of the following error messages:

mysql_fetch_array() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given

This is my code:

$username = $_POST['username'];
$password = $_POST['password'];

$result = mysql_query('SELECT * FROM Users WHERE UserName LIKE $username');

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    echo $row['FirstName'];
}

Answer 1

A query may fail for various reasons in which case both the mysql_* and the mysqli extension will return false from their respective query functions/methods. You need to test for that error condition and handle it accordingly.

mysql_ extension:

NOTE The mysql_ functions are deprecated and have been removed in php version 7.

Check $result before passing it to mysql_fetch_array. You’ll find that it’s false because the query failed. See the [mysql_query][1] documentation for possible return values and suggestions for how to deal with them.

$username = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['username']);
$password = $_POST['password'];
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Users WHERE UserName LIKE '$username'");

if($result === FALSE) { 
    trigger_error(mysql_error(), E_USER_ERROR);
}

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
    echo $row['FirstName'];
}