Are you automating an SQL query in a web page, wanting to select records to display only where they match a whole series of criteria from what could be a long list of options - for example looking for houses:

* Only in Melksham
* Less that 200k
* With a large garden

and other criteria that perhaps are required by other users might include:

* Near a good school
* Near public transport
* Ground floor
* Parking

If all that data is in your database - good, you can do it. But how do you build up the complex query? One useful trick is to have an array of possible queries, then push all the ones that you actually want into a further array and link them together with an implode putting an " and" between each element ..

$selectors = array(
  "cheap" => "asking < 200000",
  "local" => 'locate = "Melksham"',
  "bathphone" => 'phone like "01225%"');
$cwant = array();
foreach (array_keys($selectors) as $cdi) {
  if ($_GET[$cdi]) {
    array_push($cwant, $selectors[$cdi]);
  }
}
$restrict = implode (" and ",$cwant);

Demo here
Full source code here
(written 2007-11-30)

 S156 - Interfacing Applications to MySQL Databases
  [104] mysql_connect or mysql_pconnect in PHP? - (2004-10-30)
  [644] Using a MySQL database from Perl - (2006-03-13)
  [663] Python to MySQL - (2006-03-31)
  [723] Viewing images held in a MySQL database via PHP - (2006-05-17)
  [1381] Using a MySQL database to control mod_rewrite via PHP - (2007-10-06)
  [1518] Downloading data for use in Excel (from PHP / MySQL) - (2008-01-25)
  [1561] Uploading to a MySQL database through PHP - examples and common questions - (2008-03-02)
  [1885] Hiding a MySQL database behind a web page - (2008-11-15)
  [2263] Mysqldump fails as a cron job - a work around - (2009-06-30)
  [2381] Checking the database connection manually - (2009-08-28)
  [2745] Connecting Python to sqlite and MySQL databases - (2010-04-28)
  [2790] Joining a MySQL table from within a Python program - (2010-06-02)
  [3035] How to display information from a database within a web page - (2010-11-07)
  [3099] Perl - database access - DBD, DBI and DBIx modules - (2010-12-22)
  [3447] Needle in a haystack - finding the web server overload - (2011-09-18)
  [3455] MySQL, MySQLi, PDO or something else - how best to talk to databases from PHP - (2011-09-24)
  [4436] Accessing a MySQL database from Python with mysql.connector - (2015-02-21)

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