Question

I trying to query a database to find relevant results between two columns in separate tables, to do this I’m using the following code:

$query = "SELECT * FROM $table WHERE MATCH (TITLE) AGAINST ($description) AND ARTIST=$band ORDER BY relevance DESC";
    $result = mysql_query($query);
    if (!$result) {
        die("Result False on line 47: $result <br>
            Query: $query <br>
            Error: " . mysql_error());
    }

As you might expect the error message appears saying I have an error in my MYSQL syntax but I’m not sure what it is, any pointers?

Answer 1

AGAINST ($description) should be AGAINST ('$description')

ARTIST=$band should be ARTIST='$band'

Any strings that are processed through queries need single quotes ( ‘ ) around them, and column names with spaces need backticks ( ` ).

If $description or $band contain any quotes or slashes you will need to escape them using mysql_real_escape_string() (I’d recommend doing this anyway)

Also, you can consolidate your die statement into your query line:

$result = mysql_query($query) or die(
"Result False on line 47: $result <br>
            Query: $query <br>
            Error: " . mysql_error()
);