PHP MySQL - Counting Number of Rows from a select statement - php

Question

I am attempting to create a discussion board, and am trying to display the number of topics and number of total posts in each forum. I believe the issue lies somewhere in my WHERE clause, as that was causing me issues before on a previous issue.
I know that rowCount() shouldn't be relied on, and in my case doesn't work anyway, mainly due to the fact that it doesn't work with SELECT statements.
I have looked into both SELECT count(*) statements as well as doing $row = $stmt->fetchAll(); $numrows = count($row) However, I didn't get either of them to work.
<?php
/* CATEGORIES */
/* SELECTS ALL OF THE CATEGORIES OF THE BOARD */
$query = "SELECT * FROM bkg_categories";
try {
$stmt = $db->prepare($query);
$result = $stmt->execute();
} catch(PDOException $e) {
$error[] = "An error has occured. Please try again later.";
}
$categories = $stmt->fetchAll();
/* FORUMS */
/* SELECT ALL OF THE FORUMS IN EACH CATEGORY FOR THE BOARD */
foreach($categories as $category) {
$catid = $category['category_id'];
$query = "SELECT * FROM bkg_forums WHERE category_id = :catid";
$query_params = array(':catid' => $catid);
try {
$stmt = $db->prepare($query);
$result = $stmt->execute($query_params);
} catch(PDOException $e) {
$error[] = "An error has occured. Please try again later.";
}
$forums[$catid] = $stmt->fetchAll();
foreach($forums[$category['category_id']] as $forum) {
$query = "SELECT * FROM bkg_topics where forum_id = :forumid";
$query_params = array(':forumid' => $forum['forum_id']);
try {
$stmt = $db->prepare($query);
$result = $stmt->execute($query_params);
} catch(PDOException $e) {
$error[] = "An error has occured. Please try again later.";
}
$rows3['forumid'] = $stmt->fetchAll();
$rowCount = count($rows3['forumid']);
echo $rowCount;
var_dump($rowCount);
}
}
/* END QUERIES */
?>
These are all of my select queries that I am using. In that last foreach loop in my PHP select queries, you can see what I was playing around with, the var_dump() and the echo works, when it's not inside any foreach loop except for the inital parent one, but once I move it down into my table, it doesn't seem to work.
<?php foreach($categories as $category): ?>
<table class="forumtable">
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><strong><?php echo $category['category_name']; ?></strong></td>
<td><strong>Lastest Post</strong></td>
<td><strong>Topics</strong></td>
<td><strong>Posts</strong></td>
</tr>
<?php foreach($forums[$category['category_id']] as $forum): ?>
<tr>
<td width="5%" class="forum"></td>
<td class="forum no-padding">
<?php echo $forum['forum_name']; ?>
<div class="description"><?php echo $forum['forum_desc']; ?></div>
</td>
<td width="15%" class="forum content">
<?php if($forum['forum_last_post_topic_id'] == 0): ?>
<div>No posts...</div>
<?php else: ?>
<?php if($forum['forum_last_post_id'] == 0): ?>
<?php echo substr($forum['forum_last_post_title'], 0, 10); ?>
<?php else: ?>
<?php echo substr($forum['forum_last_post_title'], 0, 10); ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<?php endif; ?>
</td>
<td width="5%" class="forum content">
<?php
echo $forum['forum_topics']; ?></td>
<td width="5%" class="forum content"><?php
echo $forum['forum_posts']; ?></td>
</tr>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</table>
<?php endforeach; ?>

Answer 1

I was able to finally get the select(*) to work.
$db->query('SELECT COUNT(*) FROM users')->fetchColumn(); was what I used to get what I needed to work.