Modifying many rows of mySQL data from PHP

Question

I have some php script that I would like to run on EVERY row within a mySQL table. The php script:

function replacespaces($text) {
    return preg_replace_callback('/[\<]pre(.*)[\>](.*)[\<]\/pre[\>]/i', 
        create_function(
            '$matches',
            'return "<pre".$matches[1].">".str_replace(" ", " ", $matches[2])."</pre>\n";'
        ), $text);
}

I need to cycle through the mySQL database in the table "jos_picmicro_content" passing the content of the field "fulltext" to the above function, and inserting the result back into the field "fulltext". Sounds easy enough to do, although I am not experienced in the area! The table is about 500 rows long.

Is that code an example? Because it replaces a space with a space. — Matt R. Wilson
– Matt R. Wilson, Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 8:08

Dan Grossman · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-16 08:10:19Z

2

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM jos_posmicro_content");
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $text = replacespaces($row['fulltext']);
    $sql = "UPDATE jos_posmicro_content SET fulltext = '" . mysql_real_escape_string($text) . "' WHERE ????";
    mysql_query($sql);
}

You just ned to change the ???? part to identify which row to update (eg, where id = $row['id'] or whatever your primary key is).

answered Jul 16, 2011 at 8:10

Dan Grossman

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3 Comments

Graham Over a year ago

Thank you Dan. I am not familar with the mysql side of things. What do you mean by "primary key"?

Dan Grossman Over a year ago

How would you pick the right row from the table for whatever purpose it's storing data? How do you tell one row from another? I'm not sure how you even managed to write the query to create this table without knowing what a primary key is...

Graham Over a year ago

Figured as much, I did some googling while waiting for your response. Thanks again Dan.

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