How to join two tables with MySQL and display data using PHP - php

Question

I am trying to join two tables and assign a task from the "tasks" table to a user in the "users" table.
My tables and columns are:
tasks:
task_id,
task_description,
userid
users:
user_id,
first_name,
last_name
<?php
$join_query = "
SELECT task_id
, task_description
, tasks.userid
, users.user_id
, first_name
, last_name
FROM tasks
JOIN users
ON tasks.userid = users.user_id
";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $join_query);
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)) {
$name = $row['first_name'];
$description = $row['task_description'];
}
?>
The table join seems to be working as I can echo the data with different aliases. But I'm trying to make it possible to assign tasks to users. Am I even close? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

First look at your query and change it to this.
$join_query = "
SELECT tasks.*
, users.*
FROM tasks
INNER JOIN users
ON tasks.userid = users.user_id
";
Then fetch an associative array of the data:
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
$name = $row['first_name'];
$description = $row['task_description'];
}
As you were selecting all fields of both table so * will do this for you. And when making a join it is good approach to use the table name with field name. And in the fetch an associative array to get results. Everything else is fine :)