Mysql query generation? - php

Question

I have several different filters and search functions that I need to generate mysql queries for. I am wondering if there is a class or library I can use.
For example if they input there email with a date I need to add WHERE email='email' AND date`='date' in the middle of the sql query. But if they also enter a city then I need to add that.
I was thinking put everything I need to search by in an array and then imploding it by AND ? Does anyone have any better suggestion?

Answer 1

I use Zend_Db for that sort of thing. Quick example, using Zend_Db_Select:
$select = $db->select()->from("users");
if($email) {
$select->where('email = ?', $email);
}
if($date) {
$select->where('date = ?', $date);
}
// etc
// show query
// will output something like SELECT * from `users` WHERE email = 'email' AND date = 'date'
print_r($select->__toString());
// execute
$results = $db->fetchAll($select);
print_r($results);

Answer 2

I use array solution very often as it is most flexible solution for query conditionals
$a[] = "email = 'email'";
$a[] = "firstname LIKE '%firstname%'";
$a[] = "date BETWEEN 'date_a' AND 'date_d'";
$a[] = "id > 123";
$query = ... " WHERE " implode(' AND ', $a);

Answer 3

I'd go for adding all data that is given into an array like this:
$args = array(
'email' => 'test#test.com',
'date' => '2011-01-05',
'city' => 'MyTown'
);
Then just foreach through it adding the key and value to the search
$SQL = "WHERE ";
foreach($args as $key => $val) {
$SQL .= $key."='".$val."'";
//And add the AND or OR where needed
}

Answer 4

Common approach is to create an array that will contain different query parts and just add elements to them, depending on what you need to filter. For example:
<?php
$sql_parts = array(
'select' => array(),
'from' => array(),
'where' => array()
);
if ($filter_by_name != ''){
$sql_parts['select'][] = 'u.*';
$sql_parts['from'][] = 'users AS u';
$sql_parts['where'][] = "u.name = '".mysql_real_escape_string($filter_by_name)."'";
}
if ($filter_by_surname != ''){
$sql_parts['select'][] = 'u.*';
$sql_parts['from'][] = 'users AS u';
$sql_parts['where'][] = "u.surname = '".mysql_real_escape_string($filter_by_surname)."'";
}
//filter by data from another table
if ($filter_by_city_name != ''){
$sql_parts['select'][] = 'u.*, c.*';
$sql_parts['from'][] = 'cities AS c';
$sql_parts['from'][] = 'users AS u';
$sql_parts['where'][] = "c.cityname = '".mysql_real_escape_string($filter_by_city_name)."'";
$sql_parts['where'][] = "c.id = u.cityid";
}
$sql_parts['select'] = array_unique($sql_parts['select']);
$sql_parts['from'] = array_unique($sql_parts['from']);
$sql_parts['where'] = array_unique($sql_parts['where']);
$sql_query = "SELECT ".implode(", ", $sql_parts['select']).
"FROM ".implode(", ", $sql_parts['from']).
"WHERE ".implode(" AND ", $sql_parts['where']);
?>