What is the purpose of the mysql_query function in PHP when working with MySQL databases?

The mysql_query function in PHP is used to send a query to the MySQL database for execution. It is commonly used to perform SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or other SQL operations on the database. This function returns a resource if the query was successful, or false if it failed. It is important to note that the mysql_query function is deprecated in newer versions of PHP and should be replaced with mysqli_query or PDO. 

// Connect to MySQL database
$connection = mysqli_connect("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Check connection
if (!$connection) {
    die("Connection failed: " . mysqli_connect_error());
}

// Perform a query
$query = "SELECT * FROM users";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Process the result
if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
    while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        echo "Name: " . $row["name"] . "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}

// Close connection
mysqli_close($connection);

Keywords

PHP mysql_query MySQL databases data retrieval query execution

Related Questions