MySQL_real_escape_string not adding slashes? - php

So I do this:
<?php
session_start();
include("../loginconnect.php");
mysql_real_escape_string($_POST[int]);
$int = nl2br($_POST[int]);
$query = "UPDATE `DB`.`TABLE` SET `interests`='$int' WHERE `user`='$_SESSION[user]'";
mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
mysql_close($con);
?>
And let's say that $_POST[int] is "Foo' bar." The single-quote remains unescaped AND I get a MySQL error when running the script, due to the quote. What's wrong?

m_r_e_s() RETURNS the escaped value, it doesn't modify the original.
$int = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['int']);
$query = "UPDATE ... interests = '$int' ...";
Note that I've added quotes around the int in the POST value. Without the quotes, PHP sees it as a constant value (e.g. define()). If it doesn't find a constant of that name, it politely assumes you meant it to be used a string and adjust accordingly, but issues a warning. If you had done
define('int', 'some totally wonky value');
previously, then you'd be accessing the wrong POST value, because PHP would see it as $_POST[some totally wonky value] instead.

You're not using the results of mysql_real_escape_string in your query.
Try doing this:
$int = nl2br(mysql_real_escape_string($_POST[int]););

You should be using prepared statements. It has a slight learning curve over mysql_* functions, but is well worth it in the long run.
You should quote your strings, like $_POST['int'] instead of $_POST[int].
At the top of your file put error_reporting(-1);

Related

Variable in Quotes in Postgres Query

This is probably a stupid question, but I have been Googling an answer for the better part of the day and can't get anywhere. I am trying to get the following bit of code to work, but can't find any help on how to properly format a prepared Postgres request in PHP.
$foo = $_GET[bar];
echo $foo; // 5555
//what I'm trying to do:
pg_prepare($dbconn,"table_query","SELECT Members FROM programs WHERE programID = '$1' ");
pg_execute($dbconn,"table_query", array($foo));
If I hardcode the statement with a value, it works fine, but only if I include the single quotes. I've tried just about every method I can find to escape the single quotes or append the quotes to the string, but all I can get are parsing errors.
What totally obvious thing am I missing?
Edit: Changed the snippet to clarify that the variable I am getting does not include quotes. Any method I where I try to add the quotes fails.
Let’s study a complete example. Suppose you got your value from a GET query which set the name pid. From your example query I expect the value to be the decimal representation of an integer, different from zero. It is a string, since nothing else can come from a GET query.
$pid = $_GET['pid'];
// This is _very_ important.
// Anything that comes from outside must be validated or sanitized.
// FILTER_VALIDATE_INT refuses "0" too (correct if needed).
if (filter_var($pid, FILTER_VALIDATE_INT) === false) {
// Deal with invalid input
}
$result = pg_query_params($dbconn,
'SELECT Members FROM programs WHERE programID = $1',
array($pid)
);
pg_query_params binds $1 with $pid and quotes it correctly, while you cannot use double quotes around the statement because PHP would expand $1 incorrectly. There is no need to put quotes around $pid manually, because pg_query_params takes care of this. Furthermore, PostgreSQL accepts an integer value both with quotes and without them, so fumbling with quotes is pointless in this case.
Instead of using the traditional pg_ functions, you might use PDO, the PHP Database Object abstraction layer.
In that case (disregarding possible options needed in your case):
$dsn = 'pgsql:host='. $host .';port=5432;dbname='. $database;
$dbh = new PDO($dsn, $user, $password);
$dbh->prepare('SELECT Members FROM programs WHERE programID = ?');
$result = $dbh->execute(array($pid)); // $pid as before
You should be using prepared statements. This should solve your quoting problem and also remove a major risk of SQL injection. Try something like this:
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT Members FROM programs WHERE programID = ?");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $foo);
$foo = "5555";
$stmt->execute();

PHP - MySQL query without speech marks

$queryDetails = mysql_query("SELECT * from members WHERE username = '$current_url' ");
I'm trying to use fwrite to create a page on register. This is the only thing what is going wrong. As I'm using 'fwrite', I cannot use speech marks as it ends the 'fwrite' command.
I've tried escaping the query out;
$queryDetails = mysql_query('SELECT * from members WHERE username = \'$current_url\' ');
But that hasn't worked. I can't use " as it closes the fwrite.
Any help?
The full code is
$queryDetails = mysql_query('SELECT * from members WHERE username = \'$current_url\' ');
$queryNumRowsDetails = #mysql_num_rows($queryDetails);
if ($queryNumRowsDetails != 0){
//collect data from SQL database
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($queryDetails)){
$dbUsername = $row['username'];
$dbClub = $row['club'];
$dbReputation = $row['reputation'];
}
}
else{
die("There was a problem gathering user data.");
}
And if I try to escape the ' as shown in the second code block. It goes to the "There was a problem gathering user data."
$current_url is a variable collecting the current URL and taking away a few bits, leaving only a username remaining. Meaning example.com/users/AdziHades/index.php equates to just AdziHades.
Though your question lacks the information indicating what's not working, it looks like your problem with the query might be that you're using single quotes and trying to have it evaluate the variable inside. For example:
$myvar = 2;
$mystring = "I have $myvar apples.";
In that code, $mystring would evaluate to I have 2 apples.. If, instead, you use single quotes, like so:
$myvar = 2;
$mystring = 'I have $myvar apples.';
You will get I have $myvar apples.'. This is because single quotes will not evaluate variables automatically. Note: I am NOT referring to the quotes used in the query itself (around $current_url), I'm talking about the quotes around the entire query.
You have two options here. The 'easy' option is to just concatenate the value of the variable. The better, more future-proof way is to switch to using prepared statements with PDO (here is a page that explains why you should be using this and how to use it or at least mysqli. Prepared statements will allow for more secure queries without you having to manually escape your values to prevent SQL injection. I highly recommend you look at going down this route. The mysql_* extensions you're using have been deprecated and will most likely cause you problems in the future.

Can I use a variable directly inside the echo function without cause any incompatibility?

when I write a query for MySQL, usually use a form like this:
$column= "column_name";
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE \"".$column."\"" = \"some_value\" ";
if I want to avoid using the \"". sequence for the variables, can I use this other form or there could be some compatibility issues or some other problem ?
$column= "column_name";
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE \"$column\" = \"some_value\";
In both of these cases what you're doing is fine, but a few notes:
1) What you're doing in your first form is using the strings like string literals, which means you can/should use single quotation marks instead of double quotation marks, as they are parsed much faster.
$column = 'column_name';
$query = 'SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE ' . $column . ' = "some_value"';
What you're doing in the second example is also fine, it just depends on the reason you're trying to avoid using the escape character, but if you're just doing it for the sake of readability, what you have is fine.
Worth noting is that handling queries the way you're doing here is getting deprecated and you should take a look at PDO and inject your values that way.
Edit Per Comments Above - Removed " from around the column.
Yes, you can.
Strings delimited with double quotes are interpreted by the PHP parser.
to make sure, the variable is identified correctly, put it into curly brackets
Example
$variable = 1;
$array = array( 1,2 );
$object = new stdclass();
$object->member = 1;
$string = "You can basically put every kind of PHP variable into the string. This can be a simple variable {$variable}, an array {$array[0]} or an object member {$object->member} even object methods.";
If you want PHP to take the $variable literally without interpretation, put the string into single quotes.
Another method I really like to use for queries is the heredoc notation
$sqlQuery = <<< EOQ
SELECT
"field"
FROM
"table"
WHERE
"id" = '{$escapedValue}'
EOQ;
One more note:
In SQL you should delimit values with the single quote, and identifiers like table name and field names with double quotes (ANSI compatible) or the back tick ```

Sending a slash through mysql

I'm not sure why this has stumped me. I have the following code
$website = "http://www.google.com";
$name = "Person";
if(!empty($website) {
$name = "[url=$website]$name[/url]";
}
Then i try to insert that into mysql. I tried adding mysql_real_escape_string to both $website and $name (after the if statement), thinking the "/url" might also cause problems.
$name = mysql_real_escape_string($name);
Still no luck though. Any advice? What am I missing? It's giving me this error
"Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '/', expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING"
try
if(!empty($website)) {
$name = "[url={$website}]{$name}[/url]";
}
then use,
mysql_real_escape_string ($name);
This is a PHP syntax problem.
The parser thinks $name[ is the start of a array reference you have to add curly bracelets to tell the parser where the variable name starts and end:
"[url={$website}]{$name}[/url]"
There wont be any problem at all. When reading from database you should then put stripslashes() around your value.
e.g.
$query = "SELECT field FROM table";
$row = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query($query));
echo(stripslashes($row['field']));
And your output will be the same like YOUR input.
Make sure you're quoting values you send into a query, like so:
$sql = "INSERT INTO table (column) VALUES ('$value')";
Whatever is in $value gets passed into the query. If you leave out the quotes, bad things may happen even if you use mysql_real_escape_string(). Inside strings, forward slashes do not have any special meaning in MySQL, and so mysql_real_escape_string() leaves them intact. This is not a bug, but the documented, correct behaviour. Basically, you need to quote all values in your query.
However, the best solution IMHO is to use PDO and its parametrized queries instead of the mysql_XXX API. It's a bit more complicated (not much though), and it allows you to pass parameters into a query through an associative array, doing all the escaping and quoting you need for you.
Are you putting quotes around the value you want to insert? This will work
INSERT INTO table_name (column_name)
VALUES ('[url=$website]http://www.google.com[/url]')
This will fail
INSERT INTO table_name (column_name)
VALUES ([url=$website]http://www.google.com[/url])
So you might have in you php
$query = "INSERT INTO table_name (column_name) VALUES ('$name')";
// DO MYSQL_QUERY

Inserting data in oracle database using php

The following code is generating this
Warning: oci_execute() [function.oci-execute]:
ORA-00911: invalid character in F:\wamp\www\SEarch Engine\done.php on line 17
the code is...
<?php
include_once('config.php');
$db = oci_new_connect(ORAUSER,ORAPASS,"localhost/XE");
$url_name=$_POST['textfield'];
$keyword_name=$_POST['textarea'];
$cat_news=$_POST['checkbox'];
$cat_sports=$_POST['checkbox2'];
$anchor_text=$_POST['textfield2'];
$description=$_POST['textarea2'];
$sql1="insert into URL(Url_ID,Url_Name,Anchor_Text,Description)
VALUES( 9,".'{$url_name}'.",".'{$anchor_text}'.",".'{$description}'.")";
$result=oci_parse($db,$sql1);
oci_execute($result);
?>
Never insert user input directly into SQL. Use oci_bind_by_name() to prepare a secure statement. As a side effect, that will also fix the error you're getting (which is a quoting typo). The code would look like
$url_name = $_POST['textfield'];
$anchor_text = $_POST['textfield2'];
$description = $_POST['textfield3'];
$sql = 'INSERT INTO URL(Url_ID,Url_Name,Anchor_Text,Description) '.
'VALUES(9, :url, :anchor, :description)';
$compiled = oci_parse($db, $sql);
oci_bind_by_name($compiled, ':url', $url_name);
oci_bind_by_name($compiled, ':anchor', $anchor_text);
oci_bind_by_name($compiled, ':description', $description);
oci_execute($compiled);
You've got a few problems here. First, variables aren't interpolated into strings enclosed in single quotes. Try this simple script to see what I mean:
$a = 'hi';
print 'Value: $a'; // prints 'Value: $a'
vs.
$a = 'hi';
print "Value: $a"; // prints 'Value: hi'
Secondly, you'll need to escape the variables before using them to construct an SQL query. A single "'" character in any of the POST variables will break your query, giving you an invalid syntax error from Oracle.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I hope this is just example code? You're using unfiltered user input to construct an SQL query which leaves you open to SQL injection attacks. Escaping the variables will at least prevent the worst kind of attacks, but you should still do some validation. Never use 'tainted' data to construct queries.
It's rather hard to say without seeing what the generated SQL looks like, what charset you are posting in and what charset the database is using.
Splicing unfiltered user content into an SQL statement and sending it to the DB is a recipe for disaster. While other DB APIs in PHP have an escape function, IIRC this is not available for Oracle - you should use data binding.
C.
It's because you have un-quoted quote characters in the query string. Try this instead:
$sql1="insert into URL(Url_ID,Url_Name,Anchor_Text,Description)
VALUES( 9,\".'{$url_name}'.\",\".'{$anchor_text}'.\",\".'{$description}'.\")";
You need single quotes around the varchar fields that you are inserting (which I presume are url_name, anchor_text, and description). The single quote that you currently have just make those values a String but in Oracle, varchar fields need to have single quotes around them. Try this:
$sql1="insert into URL(Url_ID,Url_Name,Anchor_Text,Description) VALUES( 9,'".'{$url_name}'."','".'{$anchor_text}'."','".'{$description}'."')";
I don't have PHP anywhere to test it, but that should create the single quotes around your values.
Because really the sql you will eventually be executing on the database would look like this:
insert into URL
(
Url_ID,
Url_Name,
Anchor_Text,
Description
)
VALUES
(
9,
'My Name',
'My Text',
'My Description'
)
The main article Binding Variables in Oracle and PHP appears to be down but here is the Google Cache Version that goes into detail about how to bind variables in PHP. You definitely want to be doing this for 1) performance and 2) security from SQL injection.
Also, my PHP is a bit rusty but looks like you could also do your original query statement like this:
$sql1="insert into URL(Url_ID,Url_Name,Anchor_Text,Description) values ( 9, '$url_name', '$anchor_text', '$description')";
Edit
Also, you need to escape any single quotes that may be present in the data you receive from your form variables. In an Oracle sql string you need to convert single quotes to 2 single quotes to escape them. See the section here titled "How can I insert strings containing quotes?"
If you are still in starting developing, I want to suggest to use AdoDB instead of oci_ functions directly.
Your code above can be rewritten using AdoDB like this:
<?php
include_once('config.php');
$url_name=$_POST['textfield'];
$keyword_name=$_POST['textarea'];
$cat_news=$_POST['checkbox'];
$cat_sports=$_POST['checkbox2'];
$anchor_text=$_POST['textfield2'];
$description=$_POST['textarea2'];
//do db connection
$adodb =& ADONewConnection("oci8://ORAUSER:ORAPASS#127.0.0.1/XE");
if ( ! $adodb )
{
die("Cannot connect to database!");
}
//set mode
$adodb->SetFetchMode(ADODB_FETCH_BOTH);
//data for insert
$tablename = 'URL';
$data['Url_ID'] = 9;
$data['Url_Name'] = $url_name;
$data['Anchor_Text'] = $anchor_text;
$data['Description'] = $description;
$result = $adodb->AutoExecute($tablename, $data, 'INSERT');
if ( ! $result )
{
die($adodb->ErrorMsg());
return FALSE;
}
//reaching this line meaning that insert successful
In my code above, you just need to make an associative array, with the column name as key, and then assign the value for the correct column. Data sanitation is handled by AdoDB automatically, so you not have to do it manually for each column.
AdoDB is multi-database library, so you can change the databas enginge with a minimal code change in your application.

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