PHP MySQL Select

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.
Syntax:
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name

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):


$con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
if (!$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 "";
}

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