The SQL SELECT command is used to fetch data from the MySQL database. You can use this command at mysql> prompt as well as in any script like PHP.
Syntax
Here is generic SQL syntax of SELECT command to fetch data from the MySQL table −
SELECT field1, field2,...fieldN FROM table_name1, table_name2... [WHERE Clause] [OFFSET M ][LIMIT N]
- You can use one or more tables separated by comma to include various conditions using a WHERE clause, but the WHERE clause is an optional part of the SELECT command.
- You can fetch one or more fields in a single SELECT command.
- You can specify star (*) in place of fields. In this case, SELECT will return all the fields.
- You can specify any condition using the WHERE clause.
- You can specify an offset using OFFSET from where SELECT will start returning records. By default, the offset starts at zero.
- You can limit the number of returns using the LIMIT attribute.
Fetching Data from a Command Prompt
This will use SQL SELECT command to fetch data from the MySQL table tutorials_tbl.
Example
The following example will return all the records from the tutorials_tbl table −
root@host# mysql -u root -p password; Enter password:******* mysql> use TUTORIALS; Database changed mysql> SELECT * from tutorials_tbl +-------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ | tutorial_id | tutorial_title | tutorial_author | submission_date | +-------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ | 1 | Learn PHP | John Poul | 2007-05-21 | | 2 | Learn MySQL | Abdul S | 2007-05-21 | | 3 | JAVA Tutorial | Sanjay | 2007-05-21 | +-------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ 3 rows in set (0.01 sec) mysql>
Fetching Data Using a PHP Script
PHP uses mysqli query() or mysql_query() function to select records from a MySQL table. This function takes two parameters and returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.
Syntax
$mysqli->query($sql,$resultmode)
| Sr.No. | Parameter & Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | $sqlRequired – SQL query to select records from a MySQL table. |
| 2 | $resultmodeOptional – Either the constant MYSQLI_USE_RESULT or MYSQLI_STORE_RESULT depending on the desired behavior. By default, MYSQLI_STORE_RESULT is used. |
Example
Try the following example to select a record from a table −
Copy and paste the following example as mysql_example.php −
<html>
<head>
<title>Creating MySQL Table</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$dbhost = 'localhost';
$dbuser = 'root';
$dbpass = 'root@123';
$dbname = 'TUTORIALS';
$mysqli = new mysqli($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass, $dbname);
if($mysqli->connect_errno ) {
printf("Connect failed: %s<br />", $mysqli->connect_error);
exit();
}
printf('Connected successfully.<br />');
$sql = "SELECT tutorial_id, tutorial_title, tutorial_author, submission_date FROM tutorials_tbl";
$result = $mysqli->query($sql);
if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
printf("Id: %s, Title: %s, Author: %s, Date: %d <br />",
$row["tutorial_id"],
$row["tutorial_title"],
$row["tutorial_author"],
$row["submission_date"]);
}
} else {
printf('No record found.<br />');
}
mysqli_free_result($result);
$mysqli->close();
?>
</body>
</html>
Output
Access the mysql_example.php deployed on apache web server and verify the output. Here we’ve entered multiple records in the table before running the select script.
Connected successfully. Id: 1, Title: MySQL Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021 Id: 2, Title: HTML Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021 Id: 3, Title: PHP Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021 Id: 4, Title: Java Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021 Id: 5, Title: Apache Tutorial, Author: Suresh, Date: 2021