Question

I have an HTML form that lets the user write what they want to search for. In this case a Name.

The form works, but it’s in the php. I don’t know what I have to write to get MySQL to search the database for what the user has input.

Here is the line where I get stuck:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM {$table} WHERE name = 'What do i gonna write
here? (take away the ' ");

I’m using PHP 5.

Answer 1

This should get you on your way using mysqli. The manual can be found here.

This assumes you are POSTing your form, otherwise you can change $_POST to whatever request variable you’ll be using. Some sanity checking on the form variable before or after calling mysqli_real_escape_string would also be very helpful (required) in a production environment.

$db = new mysqli("localhost","user","password","database");

if(mysqli_connect_error())
{
    printf("Connection failed:%s \n",mysqli_connect_error());
    exit();
}

$name = mysqli_real_escape_string($db, $_POST['search']);
$table = 'some_table';

if($result = $db->query("SELECT * FROM $table WHERE name = $name", MYSQLI_ASSOC))
{
    while($row = $result->fetch_object())
    {
        // $row is an associative array
        // Do something here
    }
}
$db->close();