Question

So, if I want to pull some data from my database (PHP, MySql), whether I’m writing for a class or hard-coded, I’ve been doing something along the lines of:

$x = "SELECT <column(s)> FROM <table> WHERE <conditions>";
$y = mysql_query($x);
while($result = mysql_fetch_assoc($y))
{
echo $result['column']; // etc
}

Obviously I use a function or class (depending on design pattern) so pulling data like this is done in one line, I just wondered if I was doing ‘too much work’ and if there was a quicker way of doing this.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You can get tighter code by using a more up-to-date PHP module to access your database.

The mysql_xxx() functions that you’re using have been superseded by the mysqli_xxx() functions. This uses similar code, but provide more features and security than the older library:

$query = 'SELECT <column(s)> FROM <table> WHERE <conditions>';
if ($result = $mysqli->query($query)) {
    while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        print $row['column'];
    }
}

You can find out more about MySQLi (including how it differs from the old MySQL library) here: http://php.net/manual/en/book.mysqli.php

But for really concise code, you might consider looking into the PDO library. Your query could be expressed with PDO like this:

$sql = 'SELECT <column(s)> FROM <table> WHERE <conditions>';
foreach ($conn->query($sql) as $row) {
    print $row['column'];
}

…and if you really wanted to, the first two lines of that code could be combined as well.

Find out more about PDO at the PHP manual site: http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.pdo.php