MySQL error: Inserting form data into Database

Question

Teaching myself SQL and PHP at the same time and am getting this error:

Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'Name, Last Name, Course_id, Professor) VALUES ('duke','john','doe','cpsc','teacher' at line 1 with query

My code is supposed to take the information from the forms and insert it into a database that I already creadI've been looking at it for hours and have searched for the internet for a while, but still can't find whats causing this. Can anyone help me out?

Here's my test.php file with the forms:

<html>
    <head>
        <title>Insert data into database</title>
    </head>

    <body>
        <form method="post" action="handler.php">
            <p>What is your University:</p>
            <input type="text" name="uni"><br>

            <p>What is your First Name:</p>
            <input type="text" name="f_name"><br>

            <p>What is your Last Name:</p>
            <input type="text" name="l_name"><br>

            <p>What is your Course:</p>
            <input type="text" name="cou_id"><br>
            <p>Who was your Professor for that course?:</p>

            <input type="text" name="pro_id"><br>
            <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
        </form>
    </body>
</html>

and here's my handler.php file that stores the information from the forms into the database:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
        <title>Untitled Document</title>
    </head>

    <body>
        <?php
            $uni = $_POST['uni']; 
            $uni= mysql_real_escape_string($uni);
            $f_name = $_POST['f_name'];
            $f_name = mysql_real_escape_string($f_name);
            $l_name = $_POST['l_name'];
            $l_name = mysql_real_escape_string($l_name);
            $cou_id = $_POST['cou_id'];
            $cou_id = mysql_real_escape_string($cou_id);
            $pro_id = $_POST['pro_id'];
            $pro_id = mysql_real_escape_string($pro_id);

            $con = mysql_connect("localhost","root","") or die(mysql_error());
            mysql_select_db("tester") or die(mysql_error()); 

            if (!mysql_query("INSERT INTO my_hw (University, First Name, Last Name, Course_id, Professor) VALUES ('$uni','$f_name','$l_name','$cou_id','$pro_id')"))
              {
              die('Error: ' . mysql_error() . " with query ". $sql);
              }
            echo "1 record added";

            mysql_close($con);
        ?>
    </body>
</html>

Thanks

Darren · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-21 09:20:26Z

1

You have spaces in your First Name and Last Name columns:

 INSERT INTO my_hw (University, `First Name`, `Last Name`, Course_id, Professor) VALUES     ('$uni','$f_name','$l_name','$cou_id','$pro_id')

Notice the added backticks.

answered Feb 21, 2013 at 9:20

Darren

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2 Comments

spentpat Over a year ago

Thank you, that was a dumb mistake. You're supposed to have the backticks for reserved words as well right? Are there any other uses for them?

Darren Over a year ago

@spentpat - in your case they can be used for spaces in column names. I would not recommend using reserved words for a column name.

shorif2000 · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-21 09:23:08Z

0

Change your column names so they do not have spaces. It is bad practice to have spaces in column names.

answered Feb 21, 2013 at 9:23

shorif2000

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Comments

John Woo · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-21 09:23:11Z

0

Since you are using mysql, the column names must be delimited by backticks not single quotes since they contain spaces in between,

INSERT INTO my_hw (University, `First Name`, `Last Name`,...

answered Feb 21, 2013 at 9:23

John Woo

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