[RESOLVED] WHERE statement

Jazzy_Girl

Hello, can I divide up a database table based on a category instead of an id? Like:
$pull = mysql_query("SELECT rows FROM tablename WHERE fieldname='acolumnnamehere' LIMIT $otherneededvariablehere, $other2") or die(mysql_error());

Where it says rows above, I know the table fields usually goe there. But not sure how to pull rows based on the name of a column instead of the ids.

Please let me know, appreciated very much.

bradgrafelman

I'm not understanding what you mean... can you show us some example data?

alimadzi

Yeah, I'm not following this either. A couple things for future reference...

It's not a WHERE statement. It's a SELECT statement with a WHERE clause (and a LIMIT clause too).
I don't think you want to "divide up a database table". I think what you're wanting is to "filter rows using a WHERE clause". So you'll determine which rows appear in your result set based on the conditions in the WHERE clause.

I don't mean to be picky. It'll just be easier to understand and respond to your questions if you use the correct terminology. Feel free to post table definitions if that would help.

Jazzy_Girl

I thinks all I have to do is say Select (fieldname-whichwouldbemycategory) FROM tablename WHERE fieldname='thefieldname'";

Then any field with a certain name would be pulled onto the page, and any other fieldnames with different names would be pulled onto another separate page. I believe I can choose what is being put on the page this way. So that everything can be put into the same table but I only pull out the ones I want, but I'm not positive.

alimadzi

Yeah, what you've said is absolutely correct, but you'll want to add more columns to the SELECT. Go ahead and give it a shot. We'll be here if you have questions...

tomhath

Think in terms of rows and columns.

SELECT <columns you want>
FROM <the table>
WHERE <rows you want>

So when you say "WHERE fieldname='thefieldname'" it doesn't make sense. You can't select a row by giving the name of a column, because every column exists in every row.

If you meant "some value that would be stored in thefield", then what you have is fine. There's nothing special about an id column versus any other column in the WHERE clause, you're just telling it which rows to select (i.e. rows that have whatever value in whatever column).

Jazzy_Girl

Thanks, I'm doing something wrong:

"SELECT columnname WHERE 'columnname' = 'testcolumncategory' LIMIT $from, $max_results") or die(mysql_error());

The whole code works fine without added

WHERE 'columnname' = 'testcolumncategory'

but as soon as I add the extra it doesn't like it. I'm not listing the whole code yet in case you can easily see something wrong with this basic set up. All I did was take something from my other code:
$query = "SELECT columnname FROM table WHERE id = '208'";
and changed it to accomodate the columns instead but it doesn't like it.

tomhath

Remove the quotes from around columname. It thinks you want to compare the string 'columnname' to the string 'testcolumncategory' instead of the column named columnname to the string 'testcolumncategory'.

"SELECT columnname WHERE columnname = 'testcolumncategory' LIMIT $from, $max_results") or die(mysql_error());

Jazzy_Girl

Ahhhhh wise man! Thanks sooo much.

bradgrafelman

Don't forget to mark this thread resolved (if it is).