How can aliases be used in SQL queries to handle special characters like minus signs in field names?

Special characters like minus signs in field names can cause syntax errors in SQL queries. One way to handle this issue is to use aliases in the SQL query to rename the fields with special characters to something that does not contain special characters. This allows the query to execute without any syntax errors. 

<?php
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "database";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

$sql = "SELECT field_name_with_special_character AS new_field_name FROM table_name";

$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        echo "New Field Name: " . $row["new_field_name"] . "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}

$conn->close();
?>

Keywords

PHP SQL queries aliases special characters minus signs

Related Questions