Question

I am using the below code to try and echo out the latest 5 entries on the MySQL table, I cannot, however seem able to figure how to limit the number of results, can anyone help me out by allowing me to limit the number of results to 5 rows?

<table>
<?php
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/resources/pdo.php"); 
$q = "SELECT * FROM `content` ORDER BY `id`";
$query = $pdo->query($q);
$data = array_reverse($query->fetchAll());
foreach ($data as $row) {
echo "<tr><td>{$row['title']}</td><td>{$row['id']}</td></tr>";
}
?>
</table>

Thanks!

Please note that I am new to PHP and I need help so if this question isn’t useful, help me because I have only just started this.

Answer 1

order by id desc to get rid of the array_reverse and limit 5 to cap the number of returned results.

$q = "SELECT * FROM `content` ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT 5";
...
$data = $query->fetchAll();

As a global guideline: when writing queries try to formulate them in such a way that the resultset is as close to what you need as possible, ie no extra sorting or filtering operations afterwards.

1. having the dbserver send data that you aren’t going to use is a waste
2. having to resort/refilter data on the webserver costs webserver performance and, in the case of big resultsets, it can cost lots of memory as well