Debugging Help

[ghop2003]

I'm having trouble getting my php code working. I don't really know php all that well. I mainly cut and paste what others have done. This is the error message I get:

Query failed: 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 '20ORDER BY title' at line 1

Here is the part of the code that I think is relevant (if you need more code, let me know):

[code]// how many rows to show per page
$rowsPerPage = 20;

// by default we show first page
$pageNum = 1;

// if $_GET['page'] defined, use it as page number
if(isset($_GET['page']))
{
    $pageNum = $_GET['page'];
}

// counting the offset
$offset = ($pageNum - 1) * $rowsPerPage;

// Performing SQL query
$cat = $_GET['cat'];
$val = $_GET['val'];
$sort = $_GET['sort'];
if ($sort==NULL)
  $sort = 'title';

$query  = "SELECT title, year, platform, genre, owner, review_url FROM games LIMIT $offset, $rowsPerPage";

if ($cat==NULL or $val==NULL)
  $query .= 'ORDER BY ';
else
  $query .= 'WHERE '.$cat.' LIKE \''.$val.'\' ORDER BY ';

$query .= $sort;

$result = mysql_query($query) or die('Query failed: ' . mysql_error());[/code]

I'm pretty sure it has to do with the first query and second query calls, but I don't know how to fix it. Any help would be appreciated.

[.josh]

first off, when concactinating strings, make sure it gets properly spaced. Look at your error: 20ORDER BY title. You can see there that there is no space between 20 and ORDER. add a space in this line (notice the space between the ' and the O)

$query .= ' ORDER BY ';

and you are going to get the same error in your else condition as well. you need to do
' WHERE' not 'WHERE'

[ghop2003]

[!--quoteo(post=385389:date=Jun 18 2006, 03:28 PM:name=Crayon Violent)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Crayon Violent @ Jun 18 2006, 03:28 PM) [snapback]385389[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]
first off, when concactinating strings, make sure it gets properly spaced. Look at your error: 20ORDER BY title. You can see there that there is no space between 20 and ORDER. add a space in this line (notice the space between the ' and the O)

$query .= ' ORDER BY ';

and you are going to get the same error in your else condition as well. you need to do
' WHERE' not 'WHERE'
[/quote]

Thanks for the quick reply. That kind of worked. Now I get this error message:

Query failed: 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 'ORDER BY title' at line 1

I have no idea what to do with that part. I'm thinking it deals with the same section of my code but if it would help, I can include my whole code.

[ghop2003]

I figured it out. I thought I'd post in case anyone else has a similar problem. This section of the code:

[code]$query  = 'SELECT title, year, platform, genre, owner, review_url FROM games LIMIT $offset, $rowsPerPage';

if ($cat==NULL or $val==NULL)
  $query .= ' ORDER BY ';
else
  $query .= ' WHERE '.$cat.' LIKE \''.$val.'\' ORDER BY ';

$query .= $sort;

$result = mysql_query($query) or die('Query failed: ' . mysql_error());[/code]

needs to be changed to this:

[code]$query  = "SELECT title, year, platform, genre, owner, review_url FROM games ";

if ($cat==NULL or $val==NULL)
  $query .= " ORDER BY ";
else
  $query .= " WHERE '.$cat.' LIKE \''.$val.'\' ORDER BY ";

$query .= $sort;

$pagingQuery = " LIMIT $offset, $rowsPerPage ";

$result = mysql_query($query . $pagingQuery) or die('Query failed: ' . mysql_error());[/code]

Like I said before, I don't really know PHP all that well, but I'm guessing the problem had something to do with the ordering of the query (as well as the syntax). I saw this in an example for different php code and gave it a try. It worked.