MySQLi insert not working - Die error - php

Question

I'm working on a domain shortening service called "sHTTP". It uses a MySQL database to store the shortened URLs. I can't insert them though.
Here's my code:
function db(){
$link = mysqli_connect('sqlserver', 'user', 'pass', 'db') or die(mysqli_error());
return $link;
}
$url = mysqli_real_escape_string(db(), $_POST['url']);
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
function checkexists($name){
// check if shttp exists
$q = mysqli_num_rows(mysqli_query(db(),"SELECT name FROM shttp WHERE name = '$name'"));
if($q > 0){
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
function generateRandStr($length){
// generate string for placeholder name
$characters = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ';
$randomString = '';
for($i = 0; $i < $length; $i++) {
$randomString .= $characters[rand(0, strlen($characters) - 1)];
}
return $randomString;
}
if(checkexists($name)){
die('sHTTP name exists already!');
}
if($_POST['url'] == ''){
die('No URL entered!');
}
if(!$_POST['name']){
$name = generateRandStr(5);
}else{
$name = mysqli_real_escape_string(db(), $_POST['name']);
}
//THIS IS MY MAIN PROBLEM HERE GUISE
$query = "INSERT INTO shttp(name, url, ip) VALUES ($name, $url, $ip)";
//Y U NO WORKING
$exe = mysqli_query(db(), "INSERT INTO shttp (name, url, ip) VALUES ($name, $url, $ip)");
if(!$exe){
//I'M GETTING THE DIE HALP
die('Error: Could not be processed');
} else {
echo 'sHTTP created!<br>URL: <a href=http://shttp.tk/ '.$name.'>http://shttp.tk/'.$name.'</a>';
}
I'm getting the "Error: Could not be processed" I set up.
Also, my DB table is this:
name varchar(255)
url varchar(255)
ip varchar(255)
I believe that's how I set it up in my code as well.
If anyone can help, I would appreciate it. Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

You need to use quote for the string values as
$query = "INSERT INTO shttp(name, url, ip) VALUES ('$name', '$url', '$ip')" ;