Question

I’m [finally] learning PDO, and I’ve been dealing for the past hour with a problem that I cannot seem to solve. I have this code:

//Simple script that connects to mysql and database.
$db = new PDO ("mysql:host=".Configuration::get('MysqlServername').";dbname=".Configuration::get('MysqlDatabase').";charset=UTF-8",
          Configuration::get('MysqlUsername'),
          Configuration::get('MysqlPassword')) or die ("Error connecting");

// To test why it doesn't work
$STH = $db->prepare("INSERT INTO htranslations (keyword, en, page, last) VALUES (?, ?, ?, NOW())") or die ("Error preparing");
$STH->bindValue(1, "New_test", PDO::PARAM_STR) or die ("Error binding 1");
$STH->bindValue(2, "New test", PDO::PARAM_STR) or die ("Error binding 2");
$STH->bindValue(3, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], PDO::PARAM_STR) or die ("Error binding 3");
$STH->execute() or die ("Error executing");

Note: The or die are set only as a temporary measure to test where the error is originated. This code is simply not working, and I cannot figure out why. Now, what I’ve tried:

• When doing var_dump($db);, I get object(PDO)#1 (0) { } on my browser. I guess this is NOT what it’s supposed to be, but I have no idea and couldn’t find much online. The or die statement not being executed makes me think that this might be right.

• The error displayed is Error executing. This means that the last query couldn’t be executed, but that doesn’t help much since it could be a problem originated previously.

• The Configuration class is returning the right values. It was working previously with mysql and I tested it to see if it returned the right values (it does).

• I’m in 000webhost.com free account. From this forum post and this other there shouldn’t be any problem with the PDO here. Furthermore, print_r(PDO::getAvailableDrivers()); returns mysql, sqlite and sqlite2.

• The other way around, inserting the values in an array in the execute() statement, doesn’t work either.

The working previous mysql_* code was (it was escaped previously):

 $sql="INSERT INTO htranslations (keyword, en, page, last) VALUES ('$Id', '$Text', '".$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']."', now())";
 mysql_query($sql);

Can you see what I’m doing wrong? If not, can you at least point me in some direction to keep testing it? I followed mainly (but not only) this tutorial. Thank you so much.

Answer 1

Thanks to the user andrewsi I could solve my problem.

Basically, I had no idea where to look for mistakes, so I run this code var_dump($STH->ErrorInfo()); to find out what was the problem and then fix it. My resulting code was:

//Simple script that connects to mysql and database.
$db = new PDO ("mysql:host=".Configuration::get('MysqlServername').";dbname=".Configuration::get('MysqlDatabase').";charset=UTF-8",
          Configuration::get('MysqlUsername'),
          Configuration::get('MysqlPassword')) or die ("Error connecting");

// To test why it doesn't work
$STH = $db->prepare("INSERT INTO htranslations (keyword, en, page, last) VALUES (?, ?, ?, NOW())");
$STH->execute(array("New_test","New test",$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']));
var_dump($STH->ErrorInfo());

It returned a duplicate key, and that’s when I realized that the code that worked (once) with old mysql_* didn’t work here only because of a mistake in the database.

But I learned how to check out errors in the PDO way (well, still need the try/catch block) and hope that someone coming to this question with a similar error will solve it with this answer.