Simple select query returning empty result set?

Question

I can't explain this. What fundamental thing am I overlooking which is causing this not to work? I have a simple table with only one entry (for testing purposes) at the moment:

TABLE votes
vote_id | user_id | image_id | vote_type 
----------------------------------------
43      | 8       | 5        | 1

Where vote_id is a primary key, user_id & image_id are foreign keys, and vote_type is a boolean

This ridiculously simple select query with 2 WHERE clauses won't even return the one entry in the table:

SELECT * FROM `votes` WHERE 'user_id' = 8 AND 'image_id' = 5;

Even 1 WHERE clause doesn't return anything:

SELECT * FROM `votes` WHERE 'vote_type' = 1;

Yet, a SELECT with no conditions does return the 1 result:

SELECT * FROM `votes`;

Note, I don't get any errors, I just get told that "MySQL returned an empty result set". What's going on here?

Make sure the fields are string, if they are, use quotation marks in the query. SELECT * FROM 'votes' WHERE 'user_id' = '8' AND 'image_id' = '5'; — PiLHA
– PiLHA, Commented Aug 17, 2013 at 23:01

Gordon Linoff · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-17 23:01:47Z

2

You need backquotes instead of single quotes. Try:

SELECT * FROM `votes` WHERE `user_id` = 8 AND `image_id` = 5;

Single quotes are used for string constants. So the string "user_id" is not equal to the integer "8".

answered Aug 17, 2013 at 23:01

Gordon Linoff

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