Help with a query slq syntax error

[co.ador]

I have a query error

 

Error in query: SELECT rating , COUNT(*) AS rating_counts FROM rating WHERE item_name = GROUP BY rating. 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 'GROUP BY rating' at line 2

 

the query goes like this

 

$query ="SELECT rating , COUNT(*) AS rating_counts FROM rating

WHERE item_name = $shoename GROUP BY rating";

[celsoendo]

If you see the error message you'll see that variable $shoename is empty.

By the way, if the column is a char/varchar column you must enclose the variable with quotes.

 

$query ="SELECT rating , COUNT(*) AS rating_counts FROM rating WHERE item_name = '$shoename' GROUP BY rating";

 

With this, even if the variable is empty the query will not generate an error.