I need proper syntax/procedure for inserting a variable into a SELECT query...

[wordman]

Hello All,

Here's what I want to do:

Take this - $sql = 'SELECT name FROM galleries WHERE spec = XYZ'

where XYZ is a variable passed down from a query string.

What is the proper syntax/procedure for placing a variable in the above statement? I'm trying everything I can think of to no avail.

For what it's worth, I'm using MySQLi.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

Sincerely,

wordman

[Phil Weber]

I don't know MySQLi, but I would try something like this:

$sql = 'SELECT name FROM galleries WHERE spec = ' + XYZ

[wordman]

Phil,

Thank you for the prompt answer. It's still not working though, so here is the exact code I am using:

//get data from query string
$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
$spec = $_GET['ct'];

//includeMySQL connector function
if (! @include('includes/connect.php')) {
echo 'Sorry, database unavailable';
exit;
}

//create a connection to MySQL
$conn = dbConnect('query');

// prepare query
$sql = 'SELECT g_name FROM galleries WHERE g_spec = ' + $spec ;

// submit the query
$result = $conn->query($sql) or die(mysqli_error());

// extract the first record as an array
$row = $result->fetch_assoc();

Dreamweaver won't preview it on my local test server which tells me something is not right with the code.

Any and all help would be immensely appreciated.

Very sincerely,

wordman

[wordman]

Quit looking, I found it.

This is the part that I was missing. I found it on a php developer forum and just tested it...works perfect!

$sql = "SELECT g_name, g_desc FROM galleries WHERE g_spec = '$spec%' " ;

What I didn't know was that I had to surround the variable in quotes and add the % at the end. Now, I can pull the data from my DB however I like and it works.

I wanted to post this here in case anyone else had a similar hitch.

Many thanks to everyone here for your help!

Cheers,

wordman