PDO::prepare

(PHP 5 >= 5.1.0, PHP 7, PHP 8, PHP 8,PECL pdo >= 0.1.0)

PDO::prepare — Prepares a statement for execution and returns a statement object

Description

public PDO::prepare(string $query, array $options = []): PDOStatement|false

Prepares an SQL statement to be executed by the PDOStatement::execute() method. The statement template can contain zero or more named (:name) or question mark (?) parameter markers for which real values will be substituted when the statement is executed. Both named and question mark parameter markers cannot be used within the same statement template; only one or the other parameter style. Use these parameters to bind any user-input, do not include the user-input directly in the query.

You must include a unique parameter marker for each value you wish to pass in to the statement when you call PDOStatement::execute(). You cannot use a named parameter marker of the same name more than once in a prepared statement, unless emulation mode is on.

Note:
Parameter markers can represent a complete data literal only. Neither part of literal, nor keyword, nor identifier, nor whatever arbitrary query part can be bound using parameters. For example, you cannot bind multiple values to a single parameter in the IN() clause of an SQL statement.

Calling PDO::prepare() and PDOStatement::execute() for statements that will be issued multiple times with different parameter values optimizes the performance of your application by allowing the driver to negotiate client and/or server side caching of the query plan and meta information. Also, calling PDO::prepare() and PDOStatement::execute() helps to prevent SQL injection attacks by eliminating the need to manually quote and escape the parameters.

PDO will emulate prepared statements/bound parameters for drivers that do not natively support them, and can also rewrite named or question mark style parameter markers to something more appropriate, if the driver supports one style but not the other.

Note: The parser used for emulated prepared statements and for rewriting named or question mark style parameters supports the non standard backslash escapes for single- and double quotes. That means that terminating quotes immediately preceeded by a backslash are not recognized as such, which may result in wrong detection of parameters causing the prepared statement to fail when it is executed. A work-around is to not use emulated prepares for such SQL queries, and to avoid rewriting of parameters by using a parameter style which is natively supported by the driver.

As of PHP 7.4.0, question marks can be escaped by doubling them. That means that the ?? string will be translated to ? when sending the query to the database.

Parameters

query: This must be a valid SQL statement template for the target database server.
options: This array holds one or more key=>value pairs to set attribute values for the PDOStatement object that this method returns. You would most commonly use this to set the PDO::ATTR_CURSOR value to PDO::CURSOR_SCROLL to request a scrollable cursor. Some drivers have driver-specific options that may be set at prepare-time.

Return Values

If the database server successfully prepares the statement, PDO::prepare() returns a PDOStatement object. If the database server cannot successfully prepare the statement, PDO::prepare() returns false or emits PDOException (depending on error handling).

Note:
Emulated prepared statements does not communicate with the database server so PDO::prepare() does not check the statement.

Errors/Exceptions

Emits an error with level E_WARNING if the attribute PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE is set to PDO::ERRMODE_WARNING.

Throws a PDOException if the attribute PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE is set to PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION.

Examples

Example #1 SQL statement template with named parameters

<?php
/* Execute a prepared statement by passing an array of values */
$sql = 'SELECT name, colour, calories
    FROM fruit
    WHERE calories < :calories AND colour = :colour';
$sth = $dbh->prepare($sql, [PDO::ATTR_CURSOR => PDO::CURSOR_FWDONLY]);
$sth->execute(['calories' => 150, 'colour' => 'red']);
$red = $sth->fetchAll();
/* Array keys can be prefixed with colons ":" too (optional) */
$sth->execute([':calories' => 175, ':colour' => 'yellow']);
$yellow = $sth->fetchAll();
?>

Example #2 SQL statement template with question mark parameters

<?php
/* Execute a prepared statement by passing an array of values */
$sth = $dbh->prepare('SELECT name, colour, calories
    FROM fruit
    WHERE calories < ? AND colour = ?');
$sth->execute([150, 'red']);
$red = $sth->fetchAll();
$sth->execute([175, 'yellow']);
$yellow = $sth->fetchAll();
?>

Example #3 SQL statement template with question mark escaped

<?php
/* note: this is only valid on PostgreSQL databases */
$sth = $dbh->prepare('SELECT * FROM issues WHERE tag::jsonb ?? ?');
$sth->execute(['feature']);
$featureIssues = $sth->fetchAll();
$sth->execute(['performance']);
$performanceIssues = $sth->fetchAll();
?>

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User Contributed Notes 17 notes

down

187

Anonymous ¶

12 years ago

To those wondering why adding quotes to around a placeholder is wrong, and why you can't use placeholders for table or column names:

There is a common misconception about how the placeholders in prepared statements work: they are not simply substituted in as (escaped) strings, and the resulting SQL executed. Instead, a DBMS asked to "prepare" a statement comes up with a complete query plan for how it would execute that query, including which tables and indexes it would use, which will be the same regardless of how you fill in the placeholders.

The plan for "SELECT name FROM my_table WHERE id = :value" will be the same whatever you substitute for ":value", but the seemingly similar "SELECT name FROM :table WHERE id = :value" cannot be planned, because the DBMS has no idea what table you're actually going to select from.

Even when using "emulated prepares", PDO cannot let you use placeholders anywhere, because it would have to work out what you meant: does "Select :foo From some_table" mean ":foo" is going to be a column reference, or a literal string?

When your query is using a dynamic column reference, you should be explicitly white-listing the columns you know to exist on the table, e.g. using a switch statement with an exception thrown in the default: clause.

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Simon Le Pine ¶

12 years ago

Hi All,

First time posting to php.net, a little nervous.

After a bunch of searching I've learned 2 things about prepared statements:
1.) It fails if you enclose in a single quote (')
This fails: "SELECT * FROM users WHERE email=':email'"
This works: "SELECT * FROM users WHERE email=:email"
2.) You cannot search with a prepared statement
This fails: "SELECT * FROM users WHERE :search=:email"
This succeeds: "SELECT * FROM users WHERE $search=:email"

In my case I allow the user to enter their username or email, determine which they've entered and set $search to "username" or "email". As this value is not entered by the user there is no potential for SQL injection and thus safe to use as I have done.

Hope that saves someone else from a lot of searching.

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bg at enativ dot com ¶

11 years ago

if you run queries in a loop, don't include $pdo->prepare() inside the loop, it will save you some resources (and time).

prepare statement inside loop:
for($i=0; $i<1000; $i++) {
    $rs = $pdo->prepare("SELECT `id` FROM `admins` WHERE `groupID` = :groupID AND `id` <> :id");
    $rs->execute([':groupID' => $group, ':id' => $id]);
}

// took 0.066626071929932 microseconds

prepare statement outside loop:
$rs = $pdo->prepare("SELECT `id` FROM `admins` WHERE `groupID` = :groupID AND `id` <> :id");
for($i=0; $i<1000; $i++) {
    $rs->execute([':groupID' => $group, ':id' => $id]);
}

// took 0.064448118209839 microseconds

for 1,000 (simple) queries it took 0.002 microseconds less.
not much, but it worth mention.

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daniel dot egeberg at gmail dot com ¶

16 years ago

You can also pass an array of values to PDOStatement::execute(). This is also secured against SQL injection. You don't necessarily have to use bindParam() or bindValue().

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admin at wdfa dot co dot uk ¶

16 years ago

Note on the SQL injection properties of prepared statements.

Prepared statements only project you from SQL injection IF you use the bindParam or bindValue option.

For example if you have a table called users with two fields, username and email and someone updates their username you might run

UPDATE `users` SET `user`='$var'

where $var would be the user submitted text. 

Now if you did 
<?php
$a=new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=database;","root","");
$b=$a->prepare("UPDATE `users` SET user='$var'");
$b->execute();
?>

and the user had entered  User', email='test for a test the injection would occur and the email would be updated to test as well as the user being updated to User.

Using bindParam as follows
 <?php
$var="User', email='test";
$a=new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=database;","root","");
$b=$a->prepare("UPDATE `users` SET user=:var");
$b->bindParam(":var",$var);
$b->execute();
?>

The sql would be escaped and update the username to User', email='test'

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theking2 at king dot ma ¶

2 years ago

There are restrictions on the placeholder string. In the following code the first execute fails with a SQLSTATE[HY093]. It is not clear exactly what characters are allowed.

<?php declare(strict_types=1);

$db = new \PDO("mysql:hostname=localhost;dbname=minidwh", "minidwh", "Meisterstueck!");
$db->query("SET NAMES 'utf8mb4'");

$db->query("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `äëïöüß`");
$db->query("CREATE TABLE `äëïöüß` ( `id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, PRIMARY KEY (`id`) ) ENGINE = ARIA;");
$db->query("ALTER TABLE `äëïöüß` ADD COLUMN `äëïöüß` TEXT NULL");
try {
  $stmt = $db->prepare("INSERT INTO `äëïöüß` (`äëïöüß`) VALUES (:äëïöüß)");
  $result = $stmt->execute([':äëïöüß' => 'test1']);
} catch (\PDOException $e) {
  echo $e->getMessage() . '<BR>';
}

try {
  $stmt = $db->prepare("INSERT INTO `äëïöüß` (`äëïöüß`) VALUES (?)");
  $result = $stmt->execute(['test2']);
} catch (\PDOException $e) {
  echo $e->getMessage() . '<BR>';
}

try {
  $stmt = $db->prepare("INSERT INTO `äëïöüß` (`äëïöüß`) VALUES (:column)");
  $result = $stmt->execute([':column' => 'test3']);
} catch (\PDOException $e) {
  echo $e->getMessage() . '<BR>';
}

try {
  $stmt = $db->prepare("INSERT INTO `äëïöüß` (`äëïöüß`) VALUES (:column)");
  $stmt->bindValue(':column', 'test4');
  $result = $stmt->execute();
} catch (\PDOException $e) {
  echo $e->getMessage() . '<BR>';
}

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Mark Simon ¶

8 years ago

Many students are tempted to add single quotes around string place holders in the SQL statement, since that’s what they normally do around strings in SQL and PHP.

I have to explain:

Quotes are not part of the string — they are used to construct a string in the coding language. If you are creating a string literal in SQL or PHP, then it must indeed be quoted. If the string has already been created, and is being passed on, then additional quotes would be wrong at best, and mis-interpreted at worst.

In prepared place holders, think of place holders as variables, which, whether they are strings or other values, are always written without quotes.

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public at grik dot net ¶

13 years ago

With PDO_MYSQL you need to remember about the PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES option.

The default value is TRUE, like
$dbh->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES,true); 

This means that no prepared statement is created with $dbh->prepare() call. With exec() call PDO replaces the placeholders with values itself and sends MySQL a generic query string.

The first consequence is that the call  $dbh->prepare('garbage');
reports no error. You will get an SQL error during the $dbh->exec() call.
The second one is the SQL injection risk in special cases, like using a placeholder for the table name.

The reason for emulation is a poor performance of MySQL with prepared statements. Emulation works significantly faster.

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Robin ¶

15 years ago

Use prepared statements to ensure integrity of binary data during storage and retrieval. Escaping/quoting by f.e. sqlite_escape_string() or PDO::quote() is NOT suited for binary data - only for strings of text.

A simple test verifies perfect storage and retrieval with prepared statements:

<?php

$num_values = 10000;

$db = new pdo( 'sqlite::memory:' );

$db->exec( 'CREATE TABLE data (binary BLOB(512));' );

// generate plenty of troublesome, binary data
for( $i = 0; $i < $num_values; $i++ )
{
    for( $val = null, $c = 0; $c < 512/16; $c++ )
        $val .= md5( mt_rand(), true );
    @$binary[] = $val;
}

// insert each value by prepared statement
for( $i = 0; $i < $num_values; $i++ )
    $db->prepare( 'INSERT INTO data VALUES (?);' )->execute( array($binary[$i]) );

// fetch the entire row
$data = $db->query( 'SELECT binary FROM data;' )->fetchAll( PDO::FETCH_COLUMN );

// compare with original array, noting any mismatch
for( $i = 0; $i < $num_values; $i++ )
    if( $data[$i] != $binary[$i] ) echo "[$i] mismatch\n";

$db = null;

?>

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php dot chaska at xoxy dot net ¶

12 years ago

Note that for Postgres, even though Postgres does support prepared statements, PHP's PDO driver NEVER sends the prepared statement to the Postgres server in advance of the call to PDO::execute().  

Therefore, PDO::prepare() will never throw an error for things like faulty SQL syntax.  

It also means the server will not parse and plan the SQL until the first time PDO::execute() is called, which may or may not adversely affect your optimization plans.

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php at bagnara dot org ¶

9 months ago

As mentioned above, column and table identifiers cannot be passed as parameters in prepared queries. PDO also does not provide a method to escape and quote an identifier. The following method is what I use to escape and quote an identifier. Note that $this->pdo is a PDO object.

<?php
    /**
     * Escape and quote an identifier.
     * 
     * @param string $identifier Column or table name to escape and quote
     * @param string $quoteWith Database dependent, default backtick
     * @return string 
     */
    public function
    quoteIdentifier( string $identifier, $quoteWith = '`' )  :  string
    {
        $s = $this->pdo->quote( $identifier ) ;  // escaped and quoted
        $s = trim( $s, $s[0] ) ;            // remove the quotes, assumes open and closing the same
        $s = $quoteWith . $s . $quoteWith ; // add new quote
        return $s ;
    }
?>

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roth at egotec dot com ¶

19 years ago

Attention using MySQL and prepared statements.
Using a placeholder multiple times inside a statement doesn't work. PDO just translates the first occurance und leaves the second one as is.

select id,name from demo_de where name LIKE :name OR name=:name

You have to use

select id,name from demo_de where name LIKE :name OR name=:name2

and bind name two times. I don't know if other databases (for example Oracle or MSSQL) support multiple occurances. If that's the fact, then the PDO behaviour for MySQL should be changed.

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pbakhuis ¶

11 years ago

Noteworthy in my opinion is that if you prepare a statement but do not bind a value to the markers it will insert null by default. e.g.
<?php
/** @var PDO $db */
$prep = $db->prepare('INSERT INTO item(title, link) VALUES(:title, :link)');
$prep->execute();
?>
Will attempt to insert null, null into the item table.

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-2

machitgarha at outlook dot com ¶

8 years ago

Hello everyone.

I want to note that it doesn't matter where you are using a variable inside the query directly, that is not secure against SQL injections (unless performing a long security operation).

The following example is insecure against SQL injections:

<?php

$statement = $databaseConnection->prepare("SELECT * FROM `$_POST['table']` WHERE $_POST['search_for']=:search");
$statement->bindParam(":search", $search);
$search = 18; // For example
$statement->execute();

?>

If an attacker pass '1;-- ' as input named 'search_for', he is not a very bad attacker; because he didn't delete your data! In the above example, an attacker can do anything with connected database (unless you have restricted the connected user). Unfortunately, as Simon Le Pine mentioned, you cannot use prepared statements as other parts of a query; just can be used to search in indexes.

Hope this helps from loosing some data.
Sorry for my a bit weak English!

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-2

orrd101 at gmail dot com ¶

13 years ago

Don't just automatically use prepare() for all of your queries.

If you are only submitting one query, using PDO::query() with PDO::quote() is much faster (about 3x faster in my test results with MySQL).  A prepared query is only faster if you are submitting thousands of identical queries at once (with different data).

If you Google for performance comparisons you will find that this is generally consistently the case, or you can write some code and do your own comparison for your particular configuration and query scenario. But generally PDO::query() will always be faster except when submitting a large number of identical queries.  Prepared queries do have the advantage of escaping the data for you, so you have to be sure to use quote() when using query().

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-2

Hayley Watson ¶

12 years ago

It is possible to prepare in advance several statements against a single connection. As long as that connection remains open the statements can be executed and fetched from as often as you like in any order; their "prepare-execute-fetch" steps can be interleaved in whichever way is best.

So if you're likely to be using several statements often (perhaps within a loop of transactions), you may like to consider preparing all the statements you'll be using up front.

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-4

ak_9jsz ¶

17 years ago

Using cursors doesn't work with SQLite 3.5.9. I get an error message when it gets to the execute() method.

Some of you might be saying "duh!" but i was surprised to see TRIGGER support in SQLite, so i had to try. :)

I wanted to use Absolute referencing on a Scrollable cursor and i only wanted one column of data. So i used this instead of a cursor.

<?php

$dbo = new PDO('sqlite:tdb');
$sql = 'SELECT F1, F2 FROM tblA WHERE F1 <> "A";';
$res = $dbo->prepare($sql);
$res->execute();
$resColumn = $res->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_COLUMN, 0);

for($r=0;$r<=3;$r++)
    echo 'Row '. $r . ' returned: ' . $resColumn[$r] . "\n";

$dbo = null;
$res = null;
?>

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PDO::prepare

Description

Parameters

Return Values

Errors/Exceptions

Examples

See Also

Found A Problem?

User Contributed Notes 17 notes