MYSQL Update - when to use " "

[pbrama]

Hello...

I am attempting to build a programatically generated UPDATE string for MYSQL.

Using... mysql_num_fields and mysql_field_name... I can get the field names in my row for the field portion of the SET in the UPDATE.

I have the corresponding variable values to set to these fields from another array... but not sure which variable types need ' ' around the variable data or not. I thought about using the mysql_field_type command to find out what the type is... but can't find a definate answer as to what this exactly returns (all google searches say, "string, int, blob, ETC") and again, which types need ' ' or not. Also, not sure how any special field types (dates, etc) need to be processed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[dagon]

there's no harm in quoting both stings and integers, even though integers don't need to be quoted, there is a little protection in doing so.

[pbrama]

That's good to know.. didn't know if that was going to kick an error for int and other numerics.

[bradgrafelman]

The only problem with quoting everything would be in the cases of boolean values (I always use TRUE and FALSE in queries rather than 0 or 1, since the latter doesn't semantically make much sense for boolean flag type columns) and the instances where you'd want to use a MySQL function (e.g. NOW()) instead of a value (although I don't know if this applies to the topic at hand).

EDIT: Add the NULL value to the above list as well. (NULL !== '')