Question

When using

$optionquery = "SELECT OptionId FROM Option_Table WHERE (OptionType = ?)";

// Bind parameter for statement
$optionstmt->bind_param("s", $selected_option);

This is fine, but if I want to use the WHERE clause to look for the variable within a folder, how is it suppose to be written? Is it like this below?

$optionquery = "SELECT OptionId FROM Option_Table WHERE (OptionType = 'VideoFiles/?')";

// Bind parameter for statement
$optionstmt->bind_param("s", $selected_option);

or like this:

$optionquery = "SELECT OptionId FROM Option_Table WHERE (OptionType = ?)";

// Bind parameter for statement
$optionstmt->bind_param("s", 'VideoFiles/$selected_option');

Does the single quote go around both the foldername and the variable name or does it just go around the folder name?

Answer 1

You need to use the latter

$optionquery = "SELECT OptionId FROM Option_Table WHERE (OptionType = ?)";

There are a number of ways to quote the string, either of the following are fine:

$optionstmt->bind_param("s", 'VideoFiles/' . $selected_option);
// or
$optionstmt->bind_param("s", "VideoFiles/$selected_option");

Putting a variable in single quotes ' however will not work. The variable will not be translated to its actual value, you will get the literal string $selected_option in the query if you use single quotes.