PHP MySQL Select

From http://www.w3schools.com (Copyright Refsnes Data)

# PHP MySQL Select

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.

## Select Data From a Database Table

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.

### Syntax

    SELECT column_name(s)
    FROM table_name

To learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.

To get PHP to execute the statement above we must use the mysql_query() function. This function is used to send a query or command to a MySQL connection.

### Example

The following example selects all the data stored in the "Persons" table (The * character selects all the data in the table):

    <?php
    $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
    if (!$con)
      {
      die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
      }

    mysql_select_db("my_db", $con);

    $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Persons");

    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
      {
      echo $row['FirstName'] . " " . $row['LastName'];
      echo "<br />";
      }

    mysql_close($con);
    ?>

The example above stores the data returned by the mysql_query() function in the $result variable.

Next, we use the mysql_fetch_array() function to return the first row from the recordset as an array. Each call to mysql_fetch_array() returns the next row in the recordset. The while loop loops through all the records in the recordset. To print the value of each row, we use the PHP $row variable ($row['FirstName'] and $row['LastName']).

The output of the code above will be:

    Peter Griffin
    Glenn Quagmire

## Display the Result in an HTML Table

The following example selects the same data as the example above, but will display the data in an HTML table:

    <?php
    $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
    if (!$con)
      {
      die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
      }

    mysql_select_db("my_db", $con);

    $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Persons");

    echo "<table border='1'>
    <tr>
    <th>Firstname</th>
    <th>Lastname</th>
    </tr>";

    while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
      {
      echo "<tr>";
      echo "<td>" . $row['FirstName'] . "</td>";
      echo "<td>" . $row['LastName'] . "</td>";
      echo "</tr>";
      }
    echo "</table>";

    mysql_close($con);
    ?>

The output of the code above will be:

Firstname | Lastname
--- | ---
Glenn | Quagmire
Peter | Griffin

From http://www.w3schools.com (Copyright Refsnes Data)