CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysql
Susan
Susan

Reputation: 13

How to do an IF statement based on the value of a MySQL table cell?

How can I do an if statement based on the value of a mysql table cell. For example, I have a table of people with a column called marital_status. This column has one of two values: yes or no. But this doesn't work:

$query = mysql_query("SELECT marital_status FROM people WHERE first_name = 'John'");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) {

     $maritalStatus = $row['marital_status'];

}

if ($maritalStatus == "yes") {
   echo "This person is married.";
}
else {
   echo "This person is NOT married.";
}

$maritalStatus == "yes" doesn't return as true even though that is exactly the value in that cell.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3809

Answers (2)

Pascal MARTIN
Pascal MARTIN

Reputation: 401022

If you want to work on each line of data returned by your SQL query, you should place your condition inside the while loop -- which iterates over the lines returned by the excution of the query :

$query = mysql_query("SELECT marital_status FROM people WHERE first_name = 'John'");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) {
    $maritalStatus = $row['marital_status'];
    if ($maritalStatus == "yes") {
       echo "This person is married.";
    }
    else {
       echo "This person is NOT married.";
    }
}

If this doesn't help, it could be useful to check :
  • If the query actually returns results
  • If those results are actually what you think they are.

This can be done using var_dump, to dump the content of a variable. For example, in your situation, you could use :

$query = mysql_query("SELECT marital_status FROM people WHERE first_name = 'John'");
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) {
    var_dump($row);     // Will display the content of $row
}

As a sidenote, you said in a comment that echoing $maritalStatus gets you "Yes".

If there is a Y in uppercase in your database, that's the reason why your code fails : you are testing for "yes" in lowercase.

In PHP, using the == operator for string comparisons, uppercase letters and lowercase letters are considered as different characters.

If you want to compare in a case-insensitive manner, you'll have to either :

Upvotes: 5

z-boss
z-boss

Reputation: 17608

You should move your if block inside the while loop.
And make sure you account for letters case. 

$query = mysql_query("SELECT marital_status FROM people WHERE first_name = 'John'");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) {

     $maritalStatus = strtolower($row['marital_status']);

    if ($maritalStatus == "yes") {
      echo "This person is married.";
    }
    else {
      echo "This person is NOT married.";
    }
}

Upvotes: 1

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