Comparing a php variable and mysql table element that has backslashes - php

Question

I'm trying to create an online database of the music I locally have on my computer. I already have a table of every song in my library and would like to create a different table with just the song ID's (auto-incremented when I added the songs to my main table) that act as one of my playlists.
From what I can tell, the only 100% certifiable method for matching the songs is by the location on my disk ( C:\Users\username\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Music\Jonathan Coulton and GLaDOS\Portal\128 128 Still Alive Duet.mp3 ) as an example. In my PHP code I get the song location into a variable and if I print it relative to the equivalent song location in my MYSql table, they match up exactly but when I try to run a select statement using that, it gives me an error. From what I can tell this is being caused by the backslashes in the location info.
This is the select statement I'm using,
SELECT id FROM itunes WHERE Location=$locationval
where $locationval is the current song's location, id is the autoincremented id in my main table, and itunes is my main table.
Is there any way around this? And as I am a beginner, is the backslashes really the issue?
For reference here is the full code for importing the playlist, its using the DB plugin for PEAR (a PHP extension).
<?php
// define table name
define('TABLE_NAME', 'playlist');
// create database connection
require_once('DB.php');
$dsn = 'mysql://username:password#localhost/itunes';
$DB =& DB::connect($dsn);
if (DB::isError($DB)) {
die($DB->getMessage());
}
$DB->setFetchMode(DB_FETCHMODE_ASSOC);
// load text file
$file = file_get_contents('Portal.txt');
// explode on new line
$file = explode("\r", $file);
set_time_limit(0);
// loop through each line in the file
foreach ($file as $key => $value) {
// explode on tab to get column list
$exploded = explode("\t", $value);
// check for first row, which contains column headers
if ($key == 0) {
}
else{
if(count($exploded)>3)
{
$locationval=$exploded[26];
echo $exploded[26];
echo "<br />";
$result = mysql_query("SELECT id FROM itunes WHERE Location=$locationval");
//$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM itunes WHERE id=8292");
set_time_limit(0);
$row = mysql_fetch_row($result);
//test statements to see if the query worked
echo "Test: ";
echo $row['id'];
echo $row['Location'];
echo "<br />";
}
}
}
?>
Which was modified from the code here: http://ericlondon.com/posts/208-exporting-itunes-data-into-mysql-and-creating-sql-to-show-top-rated-albums
If any more info is needed, please let me know.

Answer 1

You need to escape the backslashes when using it in mysql as a string literal, so just replace your following line:
$result = mysql_query("SELECT id FROM itunes WHERE Location=$locationval");
for this one:
$result = mysql_query("SELECT id FROM itunes WHERE Location='". str_replace('\\','\\\\',$locationval) . "'");
that should do what you want.