To select only data that matches a specified criteria, add a WHERE clause to the SELECT statement.

The WHERE clause

To select only data that matches a specific criteria, add a WHERE clause to the SELECT statement.

Syntax

SELECT column FROM table
WHERE column operator value

The following operators can be used with the WHERE clause:

Note: SQL statements are not case sensitive. WHERE is the same as where.

To get PHP to execute the statement above we must use the mysql_query() function. This function is used to send a query or command to a MySQL connection.

Example

The following example will select all rows from the "Person" table, where FirstName='Peter':

<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123");
if (!$con)
  {
  die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
  }

mysql_select_db("my_db", $con);

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM person
WHERE FirstName='Peter'");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
  {
  echo $row['FirstName'] . " " . $row['LastName'];
  echo "<br />";
  }

?>

The output of the code above will be:

Peter Griffin