Re^3: Mysql Select Query by Perl

[aaron_baugher]

No, that's backwards. In SQL (at least in MySQL), you need to quote string values, not column names. A statement like this:

SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE customer = Smith;

tries to find rows where the value of the customer field equals the value of the Smith field. So it gives you an error like the one you got, complaining that there isn't a column named Smith. If you're looking for a customer whose name is Smith, you do:

SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE customer = 'Smith';

In Perl/DBI, you can do that a couple different ways. The second one below, using placeholders, is much safer, especially when searching on user-provided data (which is the case most of the time). It's also easier, because you let DBI do the quoting for you.

my $name = 'Smith';
my $st = $db->prepare( qq| SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE customer = '$na
+me'; | );
$st->execute or die $DBI::errstr;

# or with placeholders
my $name = 'Smith';
my $st = $db->prepare( q| SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE customer = ?; | 
+);
$st->execute($name) or die $DBI::errstr;

[endymion]

Thanks so much Aaron ! With your descrition I get the information in my head :-) My mistake was not to quote '%s', I directly quoted '$sel'. *lol*