Question

I have a certain column in a table that stores a number. I want this number to be set to 2 ONLY if it previously equaled 1. I was wondering if it was possible to avoid this:

$val = mysql_fetch_row(mysql_query("SELECT columnA FROM tableName WHERE something = '$someValue'"));

if($val[0] == 1) { .....UPDATE tableName SET columnA = 2....... }

Is it possible to directly query the database? With something like this:

SET columnA = 2 if columnA = 1

Answer 1

Actually the query you’re looking for should be:

update tableName set columnA = 2
where columnA = 1

The “if” you’re mentioning is actually a condition. And these conditions are set in the where clause of the update statement.

That’s it 🙂