Mysqli supports prepared statements, which protect against sql injection attacks. It would look like this:
/* Create a prepared statement */
$stmt = $mysqli -> prepare("SELECT column FROM table WHERE name=?");
/* Bind parameters */
$stmt -> bind_param("s", $_POST['checkname']);
/* Execute it */
$stmt -> execute();
/* Bind results */
$stmt -> bind_result($result);
/* Fetch the value */
$stmt -> fetch();
echo $result;
Check the manual for more info.
A quick rundown, in response to the comment:
In $stmt->prepare("..."), you're forming your query, and you hold the place of any variables you intend to use with a "?"
In $stmt -> bind_param(...), you're binding the variables to their corresponding question mark. The first argument is the type, the following arguments are the variables. If you were using a string and an integer, inside the parenthesis it would look like "si", $stringVar, $intVar
In $stmt -> bind_result(...) you are stating what you are binding the results to. If the query was for a name and age, inside the parethesis would look like $name, age
In $stmt->fetch(), you're fetching the result. If it was multiple rows returned, you would do something like:
while($stmt->fetch()) {
//code here
}
Alternatively, you could use PDO. It would look something like this:
/* Create a prepared statement */
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT column FROM table WHERE name=:checkname");
/* Bind parameters */
$stmt->bindParam(':checkname', $_POST['checkname']);
/* Execute it */
$stmt->execute();
/* Fetch results */
$obj = $stmt->fetchObject();
echo $obj->column;
Check the manual for more info.