MySQL IN clause - String and INT comparison - php

Question

I have a stored procedure which takes in a single String parameter - the value passed into this parameter is a comma separated list of ID's from PHP - something like 2,3,4,5
`DECLARE tags_in VARCHAR(255);`
Within the Stored procedure I would like to select the rows which have ids corresponding to the ids in the parameter - the query would be like
`SELECT * from tags WHERE tag_id IN (tags_in)`
I pass in the values from PHP to MySQL using the following statement binding the value as a string
`$stmt->bindParam(':tags', '2,3,4', PDO::PARAM_STR);`
Problem - the actual query being executed by MySQL is as below - where the parameters passed in are considered as one string
`SELECT * from tags WHERE tag_id IN ('2,3,4')`
When the query I want executed is as below where the parameters are considered as individual integers
`SELECT * from tags WHERE tag_id IN (2,3,4)`
Any suggestions on I can accomplish this?

Answer 1

SQL placeholders can represent only SINGLE values. If you pass in some comma separated values, they won't be seen as multiple individual values with commas, they'll just be treated like a monolithic string.
e.g.
... WHERE foo IN (:bar)
... WHERE foo = :bar
are functionally identical as far as the SQL parser are concerned, and it won't make allowances for passing in your CSV values. Both will execute the same way:
... WHERE foo IN ('1,2,3')
... WHERE foo = '1,2,3'
You'll either have to limit yourself to only as many values as you have placeholders, or dynamically build your SQL and put in a placeholder for each individual value you're trying to put into the IN clause.
e.g.
$placeholders = array_fill(0, count($values_to_check) -1, '?');
$in_clause = implode(',', $placeholders);
/// builds ?,?,?,?,?,....?
$sql = "SELECT ... WHERE foo IN ($in_clause)";
$stmt = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute($values_to_check);
This is one place where prepared statements fall flat on their faces, and you have to fall back to good old "build some sql dynamically".

Answer 2

There is sometimes another way to accomplish the desired result by casting the integer you're trying to compare as a string surrounded by commas and checking if the result is contained in your list of possible values (with added commas on either side as well). It's not the most efficient for performance maybe, but it allows you to do what you want in a single procedure or query.
For example (in your case) something like this might work:
SELECT * from tags WHERE INSTR (CONCAT(',', tags_in, ','), CONCAT(',', tag_id, ',') );
MySql is a little bit weird in that it does the conversion from int to char within the CONCAT function, some other databases require explicit casting.