Question

Using the following query, I can’t figure out why my update is not working. I’m sure its something stupid, but any help is greatly appreciated:

UPDATE Mail
SET From="Spouse"
WHERE ItemNum=9;

The Error is:

ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'From="Spouse" WHERE ItemNum=9' at line 1

The schema of Mail is:

CREATE TABLE `Mail` (
  `ItemNum` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `Qtr` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `MsgDate` date default NULL,
  `From` varchar(64) default NULL,
  `Message` varchar(255) default NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (`ItemNum`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=22 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1

Answer 1

From is a MySQL reserved keyword. Surround it with backticks:

UPDATE Mail
SET `From`="Spouse"
WHERE ItemNum=9;