What is the significance of using the '-' character as a placeholder value in a PHP script for updating database records?

Using the '-' character as a placeholder value in a PHP script for updating database records is significant because it allows you to easily identify and handle cases where a field should remain unchanged during an update operation. By using the '-' character as a placeholder, you can exclude those fields from the update query and prevent unintentional changes to their values. 

// Assume $conn is the database connection object

$id = 1;
$newValue = 'new value';
$placeholder = '-';

// Update query with conditional logic to handle placeholder values
$sql = "UPDATE table_name SET field1 = " . ($newValue != $placeholder ? "'$newValue'" : "field1") . " WHERE id = $id";

if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
    echo "Record updated successfully";
} else {
    echo "Error updating record: " . $conn->error;
}

Keywords

PHP database records placeholder value update '-' character

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