Quick 'n Easy Newbie Question!

Michiel

Hi,

I'm a newbie in the field of MySQL and I have got an easy question! I've got a table with 4 colums. Now I'd like to know what the highest value of the second column is. And I want to put this value into a variable ($highest_value). How do I do this? Please add a complete code-snippet and I will be very happy!

Thank you very much! Michiel

jeremuck

Try doing some research.

http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/index.html

That is the documentation for MYSQL. Indeed, it is a very easy answer to find. You will easily find it by looking at the help site.

Michiel

Hi,

I guess you're right. I didn't know about this website. I found the following:

SELECT MAX(article) AS article FROM shop

This is what I was looking for right?

Thanx anyway, Michiel

piersk

Try this bit of SQL/PHP:

$query = "select max(2nd_column) from table_name";
$result = mysql_query($query,$link);
$row = mysql_fetch_row($result);
$highest_value = $row[0];

jeremuck

yeah they have some good stuff...
Do you have access to phpMyAdmin ??
it allows to easily test out your SQL statements, and there is one version that will even do examples for you.
And if poking your problem with a stick doesn't solve it, there is a handy link to the help site on every page of phpmyadmin.

Originally posted by Michiel
Hi,

I guess you're right. I didn't know about this website. I found the following:

SELECT MAX(article) AS article FROM shop

This is what I was looking for right?

Thanx anyway, Michiel

Michiel

I hope I'm not asking a very stupid question now, but what is represented by the variable $link??

Michiel

Yes, I do have acces to phpMyAdmin. I will check out the help function. I started with MySQL today, before this I always used flat-file db's, so it's all a bit confusing to me now!

Thanx for helping, Michiel

jeremuck

No, that's a good question.

Usually database connections (or any connection for that matter) follow a patter of establishing a connection, requesting something, recieving something, closing the connection.

In php,

you use mysql_connect("db_server_name", "user", "password");
This returns a connection "link".
Most people call it dblink or link or something like taht.

Most of the functions in PHP can remember the link that is being used, but you can also provide it.

Therefore, depending on which database you selected (there is also a function for that), you can either supply the connection link or not.

mysql_query($query, $link) is the same as
mysql_query($query) most of the time.

$link stands for the connection link to the database server.

Originally posted by Michiel
I hope I'm not asking a very stupid question now, but what is represented by the variable $link??

Michiel