I recently decided to create a quick and dirty php form to insert data into a mySQL data base. It seems simple enough of course (and I’ve done it hundreds of times). As with all programming issues, something goes wrong and it’s simple and yet you stare at it for hours! (That’s an exaggeration, its only been ten minutes 😉 but it sounds better that way).

So here are the steps I followed:
1. I created a database using php my admin and then created a table in it:
CREATE TABLE `databasename`.`tablename` (
`id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY ,
`title` VARCHAR( 100 ) NULL ,
`long` SMALLINT NULL ,
`lat` SMALLINT NULL ,
) ENGINE = MYISAM

I have already caused my own problem … but I don’t know it yet. Can you spot the problem? Read on to find the answer!

2. Create a form for the input (of course changing my field names to match those above, id, title, long, lat – obviously a mapping function, right?). You can use the general format shown at w3schools.com/PHP/.

3. Create a php page to process the results, again use the form shown at w3schools.com/PHP/, but again change the field names. I would however suggest that you replace one line:

<code>  die(‘Error: ‘ . mysql_error());</code>

with

<code> die(“A MySQL error has occurred.&lt;br /&gt;Your Query: ” . $your_query . “&lt;br /&gt; Error: (” . mysql_errno() . “) ” . mysql_error());</code>

The reason is that you want some help in understanding what your error is. In my case, the error given was mySQL error number 1064. What is that? Reserved words. Can you guess which term is reserved? Long is …

It is good periodically to review the reserved words list … it didn’t occur to me that this would be a problem. I changed it to longitude in all places (in the database table, in the php/html form and in the processing form) and I was all set.

Lessons:
1. insert the error code reporting code suggested above as it immediately gave me the error code
2. look up the error code
3. periodically review mySQL’s reserved words which in php 5 are:
ADD
ALL
ALTER
ANALYZE
AND
AS
ASC
ASENSITIVE
BEFORE
BETWEEN
BIGINT
BINARY
BLOB
BOTH
BY
CALL
CASCADE
CASE
CHANGE
CHAR
CHARACTER
CHECK
COLLATE
COLUMN
COLUMNS[a]
CONDITION
CONNECTION[b]
CONSTRAINT
CONTINUE
CONVERT
CREATE
CROSS
CURRENT_DATE
CURRENT_TIME
CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
CURRENT_USER
CURSOR
DATABASE
DATABASES
DAY_HOUR
DAY_MICROSECOND
DAY_MINUTE
DAY_SECOND
DEC
DECIMAL
DECLARE
DEFAULT
DELAYED
DELETE
DESC
DESCRIBE
DETERMINISTIC
DISTINCT
DISTINCTROW
DIV
DOUBLE
DROP
DUAL
EACH
ELSE
ELSEIF
ENCLOSED
ESCAPED
EXISTS
EXIT
EXPLAIN
FALSE
FETCH
FIELDS[c]
FLOAT
FLOAT4
FLOAT8
FOR
FORCE
FOREIGN
FROM
FULLTEXT
GOTO[d]
GRANT
GROUP
HAVING
HIGH_PRIORITY
HOUR_MICROSECOND
HOUR_MINUTE
HOUR_SECOND
IF
IGNORE
IN
INDEX
INFILE
INNER
INOUT
INSENSITIVE
INSERT
INT
INT1
INT2
INT3
INT4
INT8
INTEGER
INTERVAL
INTO
IS
ITERATE
JOIN
KEY
KEYS
KILL
LABEL[e]
LEADING
LEAVE
LEFT
LIKE
LIMIT
LINES
LOAD
LOCALTIME
LOCALTIMESTAMP
LOCK
LONG
LONGBLOB
LONGTEXT
LOOP
LOW_PRIORITY
MATCH
MEDIUMBLOB
MEDIUMINT
MEDIUMTEXT
MIDDLEINT
MINUTE_MICROSECOND
MINUTE_SECOND
MOD
MODIFIES
NATURAL
NO_WRITE_TO_BINLOG
NOT
NULL
NUMERIC
ON
OPTIMIZE
OPTION
OPTIONALLY
OR
ORDER
OUT
OUTER
OUTFILE
PRECISION
PRIMARY
PRIVILEGES[f]
PROCEDURE
PURGE
READ
READS
REAL
REFERENCES
REGEXP
RELEASE[g]
RENAME
REPEAT
REPLACE
REQUIRE
RESTRICT
RETURN
REVOKE
RIGHT
RLIKE
SCHEMA
SCHEMAS
SECOND_MICROSECOND
SELECT
SENSITIVE
SEPARATOR
SET
SHOW
SMALLINT
SONAME
SPATIAL
SPECIFIC
SQL
SQL_BIG_RESULT
SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS
SQL_SMALL_RESULT
SQLEXCEPTION
SQLSTATE
SQLWARNING
SSL
STARTING
STRAIGHT_JOIN
TABLE
TABLES[h]
TERMINATED
THEN
TINYBLOB
TINYINT
TINYTEXT
TO
TRAILING
TRIGGER
TRUE
UNDO
UNION
UNIQUE
UNLOCK
UNSIGNED
UPDATE
UPGRADE[i]
USAGE
USE
USING
UTC_DATE
UTC_TIME
UTC_TIMESTAMP
VALUES
VARBINARY
VARCHAR
VARCHARACTER
VARYING
WHEN
WHERE
WHILE
WITH
WRITE
XOR
YEAR_MONTH
ZEROFILL

So that’s my bit of advice today for you.

This article was posted on Sunday, November 30th, 2008 at 11:49 pm