I can't connect to db or pull data - php

Question

I am using this same code `
php $postId = 41;
<!-- hidden items and variables. Elements that will not be revealed !-->
<span id="gameLength"><?php
// MySQL connect configuration
$dbname="my_db";
$host="localhost";
$user="guessthe";
$dbh=mysql_connect ($host,$user,"correctPassword?") or die ('I cannot connect to the database because: ' . mysql_error(). '');
mysql_select_db ("$dbname") or die('I cannot select the database because: ' . mysql_error());
$sql="SELECT * FROM games WHERE postId = $postId";
$result=mysql_query($sql);
$rows=mysql_fetch_array($result);
$gameId = $rows['id'];
$game100s = $rows['game100s'];
$gamesPlayedAllTime = $rows['gamesPlayed'];
$gamesPointsAllTime = $rows['gameScore'];
$gameLength = $rows['gameLength']; // get number of questions
$gameScore = $rows['gameScore'];
$gameType = $rows['gameType'];
$gametitle = $rows['gameSubTitle'];
echo $gameLength;
There is a value in the gameLength row! I can't get this code to pull any of the rows! Any idea what i'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

You're using MySQL, which is depcirated - and will be phased out. You should use MySQLi or PDO instead. Also, your $postId is defined outside a PHP-tag? Might just be a copy/paste mistake? Anyway, you can try the code below, which is in MySQLi:
<?php
$postId = 41;
?>
<!-- hidden items and variables. Elements that will not be revealed !-->
<span id="gameLength"><?php
// MySQL connect configuration
$dbname = "my_db";
$host = "localhost";
$user = "guessthe";
// Connecting to the database
$mysqli = new mysqli($host, $user, "correctPassword?", $dbname);
if ($mysqli->connect_errno) {
// If we are here, the connection failed
echo "Failed to connect to MySQL: (".$mysqli->connect_errno.") ".$mysqli->connect_error;
}
$sql ="SELECT * FROM games WHERE postId = $postId";
if ($result = $mysqli->query($sql)) {
// If the query was sucsessfull, we can get the rows
while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
$gameId = $row['id'];
$game100s = $row['game100s'];
$gamesPlayedAllTime = $row['gamesPlayed'];
$gamesPointsAllTime = $row['gameScore'];
$gameLength = $row['gameLength']; // get number of questions
$gameScore = $row['gameScore'];
$gameType = $row['gameType'];
$gametitle = $row['gameSubTitle'];
}
} else {
// If the query failed, do something here
}
echo $gameLength;
?>
I see some people commenting that you need to put the $postId variable inside quotes in the query, but when using double-quotes (") variables will be posted, so it's not really needed. Also note that things are case-sensitive, so if your results doesn't show, check for spelling-mistakes.

Answer 2

There are many errors in your code
Try this...
<?php
$postId = 41;
?>
<!-- hidden items and variables. Elements that will not be revealed !-->
<span id="gameLength">
<?php
// MySQL connect configuration
$host = "localhost";
$dbname = "my_db";
$user = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbh = mysql_connect ($host,$user,$password) or die ('I cannot connect to the database because: ' . mysql_error() . '');
mysql_select_db($dbname, $dbh) or die('I cannot select the database because: ' . mysql_error());
$sql = "SELECT * FROM games WHERE postId='$postId'";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
while($rows = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
$gameId = $rows['id'];
$game100s = $rows['game100s'];
$gamesPlayedAllTime = $rows['gamesPlayed'];
$gamesPointsAllTime = $rows['gameScore'];
$gameLength = $rows['gameLength']; // get number of questions
$gameScore = $rows['gameScore'];
$gameType = $rows['gameType'];
$gametitle = $rows['gameSubTitle'];
echo $gameLength;
}
?>

Answer 3

You need to fix this is your code and that should fix the error.
$sql="SELECT * FROM games WHERE postId ='".$postId."' ";
If you want all the records you can use a while loop. Here is some pseudo code.
while($row = mysql_fect_assoc($query)){
echo $row["THE THING YOU WANT"];
...
}