Same query but different results in phpMyAdmin and PHP [duplicate] - php

Question

This question already has an answer here:
PDO, MySQL SELECT statement returning boolean true?
(1 answer)
Closed 11 months ago.
I have seen similar posts to this one already existing but none of them have helped.
When I run this PHP code with $retrievestat = 1, I get a value of 1 return by the search query in php:
$retrievestat = $_POST["statIdentifier"];
echo $retrievestat;
// Retrieve The Player With The Most Rounds Won With Their Rounds
if ($retrievestat == 1)
{
$checkuniquequery = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM playerstats WHERE roundswon = (SELECT MAX(roundswon) FROM playerstats);"; // Get number of rows that have a roundswon value equal to the max in the table
$stmt = $conn->prepare($checkuniquequery);
echo ($stmt->execute());
if ($stmt->execute() == 1) // If only one row has the max roundswon then get the username + roundswon
{
$mostroundswonquery = "SELECT username, MAX(roundswon) FROM players, playerstats WHERE players.id = playerstats.id";
$stmt = $conn->prepare($mostroundswonquery);
//echo ($stmt->execute());
}
However, when I run this query in phpMyAdmin:
"SELECT COUNT(*) FROM playerstats WHERE roundswon = (SELECT MAX(roundswon) FROM playerstats);"
I get 2 returned as the output.
Any ideas why this is happening and how to fix it?

Answer 1

The execute method on PDO statement ($stmt->execute()) does return either true (if execution was successful) or false if not. It does not return the return value of the SQL statement. On a side node: $stmt->execute() == 1 does behave the same as $stmt->execute() == true !
To get the actual return value you need to fetch the result after execution.
E.g. you can use $stmt->fetch() to get actual result.
Have a look at the documentation to learn more: https://www.php.net/manual/en/class.pdostatement.php