mysql_query not working - php

Question

Here's PHP code that I'm using:
$query="select * from `myTable` where `email`='$email' limit 0,1";
if(empty($conn))
{
echo "not connected".PHP_EOL;
}
$result = mysql_query($query,$conn);
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
if(empty($row))
{
....
When the query is executed in phpmyadmin, I get a single row selected.
However, when I execute the code in php, the row is always empty.
The same goes for several other queries that I've tried to execute. mysql_query always fails.
What could be wrong?

Answer 1

I do not feel there is enough of the code to see what is going on. But based on just what you are showing us, after you get the $result and assign it to $row you have a if statement
if(empty($row)) {...doing something secret...}
which means if something was returned like the row you are expecting NOTHING would happen because (empty($row)) would be false and not execute.

Answer 2

Try this using PDO:
<?php
$email = "example#example.com";
try {
//Instantiate PDO connection
$conn = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=db_name", "user", "pass");
//Make PDO errors to throw exceptions, which are easier to handle
$conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
//Make PDO to not emulate prepares, which adds to security
$conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES, false);
$query = <<<MySQL
SELECT *
FROM `myTable`
WHERE `email`=:email
LIMIT 0,1;
MySQL;
//Prepare the statement
$stmt = $conn->prepare($query);
$stmt->bindParam(":email", $email, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->execute();
//Work with results
while ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
//Do stuff with $row
}
}
catch (PDOException $e) {
//Catch any PDOExceptions errors that were thrown during the operation
die("An error has occurred in the database: " . $e->getMessage());
}
Using mysql_* functions is highly discouraged. It's a guarantee to produce broken code. Please learn PDO or MySQLi from the links in the comment I gave you, and use those instead.

Answer 3

First, confirm $email's value. Echo it right before defining $query to make sure it's what you think it is.
If you've already done that, then you know that's the problem--instead, it's likely that your link identifier $conn is the problem. Instead of using a link identifier, try leaving the second parameter of your query empty, and instead run mysql_connect() at the beginning of your script. That's the best way to do things 99.5% of the time.
See: http://php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-connect.php