select and where syntax?

Anon

hello-

help. I've researched these lists, but can't quite put my answer together.

I have a form that imserts data about products into a mysql db. There are several tables. If the company name does not exist, the script inserts the company info entered in the form into the company table. If the company name does exist, I need the script to insert the id of that company from the company table into the product table in the same row as the new product. The id of the company is unique.

I've been trying to do a select but I can't seem to get the syntax correct.

Can someone help with some handholding?

Thank you-

kparker

You mean like this?

  select id from companies where name = '$company_to_find'

Anon

yeah exactly-

but I tried this:

$coidd = mysql_query("select coid from company where coname = \"$coname\"");

but when I echo $coidd, I get

Resource id #3

as a result rather than the coid. Am I missing a step?

Thanks-

kparker

Am I missing a step?

Absolutely. The return value of mysql_query() only tells you whether your query was "successful" in the sense of the syntax being valid and the tables, columns, and functions referred to actually existing.

To retrieve the results, you need to repeatedly call mysql_fetch_row(), mysql_fetch_array(), or mysql_fetch_object() to retrieve the results one row at a time.