Question

I am writing a code, where I have to produce a query with many OR statements, and I think there is a more comfortable way to this than:

foreach ($plz as &$value) {
    if (empty($i)) {
        $query = "WHERE plz='$value'";
    } else {
        $query = "$query OR plz='$value'";
    }
    $i++;
}
$sql = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table $query");
while ($data = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
    //do something
}

Answer 1

If you have multiple values a column may take, just connect them using the IN operator:

Instead of writing

... WHERE col=1 OR col=2 OR col=3

just write

... WHERE col IN (1,2,3)

To collect all entries in PHP, use an array and implode() later on:

// collecting values
$vals = array();
$vals[] = 1;
$vals[] = 2;
// ...

// add them to your query
$query .= ' WHERE col IN ( ' . implode( ',', $vals ) . ')';

// execute the query ...

In case your values are not integer, but need to be enclosed in apostrophes within the query, insert them that way into the array in the first place:

$vals[] = "'my string value'";