Update Data In a Database

The UPDATE statement is used to update existing records in a table.

Syntax

UPDATE table_name SET column1=value, column2=value2,... WHERE some_column=some_value

Note: Notice the WHERE clause in the UPDATE syntax. The WHERE clause specifies which record or records that should be updated. If you omit the WHERE clause, all records will be updated!

To learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.

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

Earlier in the tutorial we created a table named "Persons". Here is how it looks:

FirstName	LastName	Age
Peter	Griffin	35
Glenn	Quagmire	33

The following example updates some data in the "Persons" table:

< ?php $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123"); if (!$con) { die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error()); } mysql_select_db("my_db", $con); mysql_query("UPDATE Persons SET Age = '36' WHERE FirstName = 'Peter' AND LastName = 'Griffin'"); mysql_close($con); ? >

After the update, the "Persons" table will look like this:

FirstName	LastName	Age
Peter	Griffin	36
Glenn	Quagmire	33