Mysqli can't insert multiple rows - php

Question

$allgames = file_get_contents("https://steamspy.com/api.php?request=all");
$decodeall = json_decode($allgames, true);
foreach($decodeall as $game) {
$sql = "INSERT INTO games (name)
VALUES ('{$game['name']}')";
}
if ($conn->multi_query($sql) === TRUE) {
echo "New records created successfully";
} else {
echo "Error: " . $sql . "<br>" . $conn->error;
}
$conn->close();
When i do this only the first row will be added. How do i insert multiple rows?

Answer 1

Just get rid of that multi query thing. Use a prepared statement instead
$stmt = $conn->prepare("INSERT INTO games (name) VALUES (?)");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $name);
foreach($decodeall as $game) {
$name = $game['name'];
$stmt->execute();
}
echo "New records created successfully";
Note that your current code with multi_query won't work as intended anyway, even with that silly typo fixed. You will have the result of only first query, having no idea what happened to all others.

Answer 2

You are overwriting the query each time. Try setting sql to blank then appending it each time in the loop.
Try this:
$sql = array();
foreach($decodeall as $game) {
$sql[] = "INSERT INTO games (name) VALUES ('{$game['name']}')";
}
$sqlInserts = implode(';', $sql);
if ($conn->multi_query($sqlInserts) === TRUE) {
echo "New records created successfully";
} else {
echo "Error: " . $sql . "<br>" . $conn->error;
}

Answer 3

You don't need to perform the query multiple times like that, you can do it all in a single query without multi_query(). You can perform many INSERTs with a single query, like this
// Initialize the query-variable
$sql = "INSERT INTO games (name) VALUES";
// Loop through results and add to the query
foreach ($decodeall as $game) {
$sql .= " ('".$game['name']."'),";
}
// Remove the last comma with rtrim
$sql = rtrim($sql, ',');
// Perform the query
if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
echo "New records created successfully";
} else {
echo "Error: " . $sql . "<br>" . $conn->error;
}
This will generate a query resembling
INSERT INTO games (name) VALUES ('One'), ('two'), ('Three')
which will insert the values One, Two and Three into separate rows.
This query will break if your $game['name'] variables contain an apostrophy ', so at the very least you should use $mysqli::real_escape_string(), although a prepared statement takes care of that and prevents SQL injection (so I recommend you go for that instead). See How can I prevent SQL injection in PHP?
Using a prepared statement - the better solution
The preferred method of executing a query is by using a prepared statement.
Fetch all the columns using array_column() and loop the array while calling the execute method until finished.
$stmt = $conn->prepare("INSERT INTO games (name) VALUES (?)");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $name);
foreach (array_column($decode, "name") as $name) {
$stmt->execute();
}