[RESOLVED] Limiting the number of characters returned in a query

mpar612

Hi everyone,

This is might be more of a MySQL type of question, I hope that's ok.

I am using the following sql query:

SELECT upc, artist_name, album_title, description, image FROM lounge_products 
WHERE upc = $feat_sel

The description is saved as text in MySQL and has a max of 1000 characters. When I pull this from the database using PHP, I would only like to retrieve the first 250 characters.

Does anyone have any thoughts that could point me in the right direction? Thanks!

Roger_Ramjet

LEFT

mpar612

Thanks for the response!

Here is a more complete version of my code and now I can't get $feat_description to print anything.

If I go into PHPMyAdmin and enter the sql code it uses the word "description" as the basis for printing the first 250 characters rather than using the information saved in the "description" field of the database.

Any thoughts? I appreciate your help. Thanks!

$feat_sql = "SELECT upc, artist_name, album_title, LEFT('description', 250), image FROM lounge_products WHERE upc = $feat_sel";
 $feat_row = $db->getRow($feat_sql);
 $feat_upc = $feat_row[upc];
 $feat_artist = $feat_row[artist_name];
 $feat_album = $feat_row[album_title];
 $feat_description = stripslashes($feat_row[description]);
 $feat_image = $feat_row[image];

NogDog

Try this:

$feat_sql = "SELECT upc, artist_name, album_title, LEFT('description', 250) [color=red]AS desc_250[/color], 
image FROM lounge_products WHERE upc = $feat_sel";

Then in your output:

$feat_description = stripslashes($feat_row['desc_250']);

Drakla

Why stripslashes from $feat_description?

NogDog

Drakla wrote:
Why stripslashes from $feat_description?

Presumably the data was inserted into the DB with mysql_real_escape_string() or addslashes() to prevent sql injection, and now we want to delete the escaping backslashes for output.

Drakla

It's a common mistake. You escape data going into the database, but not when retrieving it. The only time stripping the slashes from retrieved data is if it was mistakenly escaped twice due to magic quotes being on, which can be checked with [man]get_magic_quotes_gpc[/man]. In this case it's best to stripslash it first then use your database's appropriate escaping function.

mpar612

The solution was to modify the SQL statement by adding "LEFT('description', 250) as description".