Limit results from mySQL?

[toddg]

Hello:
I am new to PHP and trying to limit results from a mySQL query. basically I would like to know the best practice for doing somethign like this.

I have a table in mySQL that I am trying to pull three fields from for items equal to or older than today limit the results to five and print those to the screen in a particular format.

I thought I should use something like this:
<?PHP
(connection string)
Select folderName, galleryName, entryDate from Gallery where entryDate <= today? limit 5 order by entryDate DESC;

{
echo "<a href=/galleries.php?folder=$folderName>$galleryName</a><br>"
}
?>

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Todd

[pnoeric]

Todd-- not sure exactly what the question is but your PHP and SQL code seems ok to me; be sure to loop on the 'echo' statement or else you won't get any results... and of course format the $today string just as the db will want it (I believe MySQL has a built-in function for that but watch out, it uses a different Unix epoch time, I believe... check php.net/date for the date and time functions to get what you need, or use adodb for PHP)

best
Eric

[ducky]

I think you would do something like this...

$sql = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE date <= '$today' LIMIT 5";

[toddg]

Actually I should have been more clear..

The loop is what I am trying to figure out, as well as the today format.

I am using mySQL set to timestamp(8) which displays YYYYMMDD

Thanks again!

Todd

[pnoeric]

Todd, I'm gonna let someone else help you with the loop as I usually use a db abstraction layer with PHP (ADOD😎 so I don't know the native mysql_ functions very well.

As for the date format... just build a string using the date() function and you're set... i.e.

$today = date("Ymd"); 

for more info, please go see http://php.net/date

best
Eric