Expanding on the accepted answer:
function mysql_query_or_die($query) {
$result = mysql_query($query);
if ($result)
return $result;
else {
$err = mysql_error();
die("<br>{$query}<br>*** {$err} ***<br>");
}
}
...
$query = "SELECT * FROM my_table";
$result = mysql_query_or_die($query);
echo("<table>");
$first_row = true;
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
if ($first_row) {
$first_row = false;
// Output header row from keys.
echo '<tr>';
foreach($row as $key => $field) {
echo '<th>' . htmlspecialchars($key) . '</th>';
}
echo '</tr>';
}
echo '<tr>';
foreach($row as $key => $field) {
echo '<td>' . htmlspecialchars($field) . '</td>';
}
echo '</tr>';
}
echo("</table>");
Benefits:
Using mysql_fetch_assoc (instead of mysql_fetch_array with no 2nd parameter to specify type), we avoid getting each field twice, once for a numeric index (0, 1, 2, ..), and a second time for the associative key.
Shows field names as a header row of table.
Shows how to get both column name
($key) and value
($field) for each field, as iterate over the fields of a row.
Wrapped in <table>
so displays properly.
(OPTIONAL) dies with display of query string and mysql_error, if query fails.
Example Output:
Id Name
777 Aardvark
50 Lion
9999 Zebra