mssql_query

Haprog (2011-12-20 08:10:49)

In some cases when mssql_query() returns rows containing fields of type SMALLDATETIME or TIMESTAMP when the data is not NULL, PHP seems to enter some kind of error state where PHP no longer outputs anything to the browser. Not even data echoed before the query! DATETIME fields seem to work without this problem though.
When this happens, PHP doesn't give any errors even with error_reporting(-1), and no errors appear in Apache logfiles either.
There seems to be a workaround by explicitly calling flush() at the end of the skript.
In my case the problem occurred only when using some basic comparison operators for integer or string fields in a WHERE clause (eg. "WHERE id = 1000").
I discovered this behaviour on Ubuntu 11.10 (Linux 3.0.0-13-generic-pae), Apache 2.2.20, PHP 5.3.6-13ubuntu3.3 with Suhosin-Patch as Apache module, php5-mssql package using freetds

MSSQLNewbie (2011-09-19 13:34:48)

Here are some things you might need to know:
1. Install mssql support for Debian (Lenny/Squeeze):
apt-get install php5-sybase
2. When you got this error message:
"Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library (such as ISQL) or ODBC version 3.7 or earlier."
In /etc/freetds/freetds.conf add these two lines (last two):
[global]
;tds version = 4.2
tds version = 8.0
client charset = UTF-8
You can edit "charset" in php.ini too (but you don't need if you did it previously in freetds.conf):
; Specify client character set..
; If empty or not set the client charset from freetds.comf is used
; This is only used when compiled with FreeTDS
mssql.charset = "UTF-8"
3. Use nchar/nvarchar/ntext column types if you need unicode support.

vavra at 602 dot cz (2011-08-30 05:35:26)

The scenario with adding SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY after INSERT works. But in my a little bit complicated schema I got false when I called sqlsrv_fetch(.)

I modified reading SCOPE_IDENTITY as: "Read the last integer value obtained".

I suppose this is because I have several triggers that makes also insert after main insert call and sql server returns number of affected rows in Sql Management Studio). In php it returns only false when fetch called. So I must jump over all this 'false' rows.

<?php
$resource = sqlsrv_query($con, 'INSERT....; SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY()');

$scope_identity =null;
while ( sqlsrv_next_result($resource) ) 
{
        $fr = sqlsrv_fetch($resource); 
        if ($fr===false) 
       {                    
          continue;          
        }         
                        
        $colval = sqlsrv_get_field($resource, 0, SQLSRV_PHPTYPE_INT);
        if (is_int($colval)) 
       {
          $scope_identity=$colval;
        }        
              
}
?>

Wilfur (2011-06-04 08:19:44)

I had this problem upgrading to sqlsrv from mssql. In short, SCOPE_IDENTITY doesn't seem to work with sqlsrv correctly when using parameters. This isn't in fact the case, it just works differently.

To recap the problem:

Table 'test' definitely has an identity column id. However you can not do (apologies for pseudo-code):

<?php
doquery("INSERT INTO test (col1, col2) VALUES (?,?)", $parameters);
$lastId=doquery("SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY()");
?>

because, under sqlsrv, these two queries are in different scopes, so there is nothing to return... However, this also doesn't work as expected:

<?php
$query = "INSERT INTO test (col1, col2) VALUES (?,?); SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY()";
$arrParams[]="1";
$arrParams[]="2";
$resource=sqlsrv_query($conn, $query, $arrParams);
$arrRow = sqlsrv_fetch_array($resource, SQLSRV_FETCH_ASSOC);
echo $arrRow[0];
?>

Here you might expect to see the last insert id, but you see nothing. This is because the resource is currently pointing to the 'true' from the first query (the insert query) and so the insert id is 'hidden' in another row of the resource.

Solution.... set up as before, but then:

<?php
$resource=sqlsrv_query($conn, $query, $arrParams);
sqlsrv_next_result($resource);
sqlsrv_fetch($resource);
echo sqlsrv_get_field($resource, 0);
?>

This will give you what you want! This will work similarly with something like "INSERT INTO test (col1, col2) VALUES (?,?); SELECT * from test WHERE ID = SCOPE_IDENTITY()" and again you have to move through the resource to get at the data you want.

I hope this helps someone, since it's just wasted a good two hours of my time! Also, sorry for any errors in the code - I'm afraid I've written it off the top of my head, but hopefully you get the idea...

timo dot sand at ipss dot fi (2010-11-30 05:18:02)

It would seem that this returns a resource even if the query is a SELECT which returns 0 rows.

alpa at 33oxclove dot com (2010-09-02 09:06:34)

Hi All,
I was trying to insert PDF in MSSQL image datatype and had a worst time figuring out how to add PDF without encoding it with base64_encode. Encoding/decoding works best but it was conflicting with other existing PDFs in database as they weren't encoded.
The solution is to create hex string and the Trick is *NOT* to use quotes in query.

<?php
$FileName = $_FILES['pdffile']['tmp_name'];
$dataString = file_get_contents($FileName );
$arrData = unpack("H*hex", $dataString);
$hexdata = "0x".$arrData['hex'];
?>

Query:
$sql = "insert into docs(pdfname, pdfdoc) values('$pdfname', $hexdata)

Hope this helps to someone.... Cheerzz

ianknapton at hotmail dot com (2010-07-07 05:59:49)

I have a mssql database with an ntext data type and was having problems as the cast solution data was still being truncated by php, i combined a couple of methods from here and elsewhere on the internet.
If you have are retrieving vast amounts of text from a SQL Server database into your website.
use SQl statements using cast e.g.
SELECT CAST(details as TEXT) from table
and in the php.ini file change these values in the [mssql] section, from 4096 to whatever size and limit, remember to remove the ; from the front of the ammended line
; Valid range 0 - 2147483647. Default = 4096.
mssql.textlimit = 2147483647
; Valid range 0 - 2147483647. Default = 4096.
mssql.textsize = 2147483647

sreekumar kv (2010-05-12 00:18:20)

If text fields from mssql SELECT queries are truncated (at 4096 characters), even after using , 
<?php
ini_set ( 'mssql.textlimit' , '65536' );
ini_set ( 'mssql.textsize' , '65536' );
?>

make sure that the ini_set function is used before the connection to the database is established.

Anonymous (2010-02-16 01:37:41)

Regarding the problems mentioned on here with the format that datetime columns are returned in. Running on debian lenny and used apt-get install php5-sybase to get access to these functions. After which datetime fields were returned as a string something like 'Feb 16 2010 09:14:10:010AM' which was not recognised when passed to e.g. new DateTime(). Also smalldatetime fields caused php to crash.
To fix I did this:
vi /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
After this line:
;mssql.datetimeconvert = On
Add this line:
mssql.datetimeconvert = Off
Now both datetime and smalldatetime come back as something like '2010-02-16 09:14:00'.

TheronP (2010-01-31 17:44:03)

To avoid SQL Injection, if you want to have multiple named parameters without writing stored procedures you can use built in stored procedure sp_executesql and mssql_query:

<?php
//Returns records with Id#46 or first name starting with 'Mary'

$server = '127.0.0.1'; 
$link = mssql_connect($server, 'sql_user', 'sql_user_pass'); 

//Select DB 
$dbn = 'dbName'; 
mssql_select_db($dbn); 

//input variables
$name='Mary%';
$id=46;

//necesssary for stored procedure
$params="@name varchar(50),@id int";
$paramslist="@name='$name%',@id='$id'";

$sql = "select FirstName,LastName,EmpId from employees where FirstName like  @name or EmpId = @id  " ;

$dbsql = "EXEC sp_executesql 
          N'$sql', 
          N'$params',
          $paramslist";

//important to have the "N'" !

$result=mssql_query($dbsql,$link);
?>

for more info on sp_executesql go here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188001.aspx

works on MSSQL 2000,2005,2008

dann dot farquhar at iteams dot org (2009-09-25 06:45:29)

Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library
I found that changing the version in /etc/freetds.conf from 4.2 to 8.0 fixes this problem without having to make any changes to the SELECT statement

thewiglaf at gmail dot com (2009-05-13 18:59:51)

Note that although the documentations states that mssql_query will return "TRUE if no rows were returned", it will still return an empty resource identifier for SELECT statements that do not return any rows. This empty resource identifier will get dynamically typed as TRUE in a boolean context. Only for queries that do not actually return rows (eg. insert, update, or delete) will mssql_query return an actual boolean TRUE value.
We should use mssql_num_rows($resource) rather than $resource===TRUE for checking whether rows were returned.

sergio dot charrua at gmail dot com (2009-03-11 06:53:14)

hello all!

here's a tip for those of you that, just like me, had some problems on how to get values from a call to a Stored Procedure that returns Multiple Recordsets.

<?php
conn = mssql_connect($server, $user, $pass, $db);
$sql ="EXEC WhateverSProcYouWant some_arguments"; 
$data = mssql_query( $sql, $conn);        
$result = array();    

do {
    while ($row = mssql_fetch_object($data)){
        $result[] = $row;    
    }
}while ( mssql_next_result($data) );

mssql_close($conn);
?>

this will create 2 loops:
1 - which loops through all returned recordsets. mssql_next_result will step through each recordsets
2 - this inner-loop will return all rows, as objects, from current recordset and add each object to the $result array.

and that's it!

HTH, has i haven't found any info/docs related to multiple recordsets

orbex1 at gmail dot com (2008-06-16 05:16:22)

Hopes this saves somebody the hassle I had to go through...
Was struggling with an M$sql database which was poorly designed (no Identity-colums), so I had to find a way to get the last id inserted...
Also struggled with the chars a while ;-)

$sql = "SELECT cast(AD_GUID as varchar(36)) FROM test_adres;";
//execute the SQL query and return records to find insertID
$result = mssql_query($sql) or die("MS-Query Error in select-query");
$max = (mssql_num_rows($result)-1);
mssql_data_seek($result, $max);
$row = mssql_fetch_row($result);
$insert_id = $row[0];
Hope this will help somebody in the future...

mikelasouris at yahoo dot com (2008-05-02 20:27:05)

Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library
solution:
try: select field from table, avoid "select * from table" php will scream at you. strangely after executing select field from table you'll be able to execute select * from table.
i'm using apache2, win XP, sqlexpress05

hpainter at gmail dot com (2008-04-29 08:05:17)

I was tripped up by the fact that mssql_query() returns values for 'datetime' columns in an unusual format. In order to get your values returned in the usual 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' format, you can use the CONVERT function in your query like so:
SELECT CONVERT(varchar, INVOICE_DATE, 121) AS INVOICE_DATE ...
where 'INVOICE_DATE' is the name of the 'datetime' column. The available datetime conversion formats are listed here:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa226054(SQL.80).aspx

bellina at uiuc dot edu (2007-12-03 12:32:29)

After much fighting with my php5 installation and FreeTDS I figured out why my SELECT of an ntext field was truncating to a value.
This can be changed in the FreeTDS config file. Look for "text size"... this should be commented out. Uncomment it and set the value to something, this will let your ntext through.
Hope this helps

sbaetz at soscs dot net (2007-11-07 12:36:34)

-- Phew -- I answered this myself... 

The problem had NOTHING to do with mssql, or mysql for that matter.

For some reason when an image is held in a blob, and you want to display this within a browser, I found I had to do the following.

I had to create a mini-php page, that looks essentially like the following psuedo code...

<?php # mini.php

$id = $_GET['id'];
$q = "select image from table where id = $id";
$image = mssql_query($q);

header("content-type image/jpeg");
echo($image);
?>

and then include this snippet within the core display page like this:

<html>
blah blah..
<img src='mini.php&id=<?php print $targetid; ?>'>
</html>

and BANG! it worked...

mir eder (2007-08-28 03:37:27)

If you are having problems with truncated text fields from ODBC queries (pe. at 4096 characters), try some of the following:
in php.ini:
- odbc.defaultlrl = 65536
in your php code, before your queries:
- ini_set ( 'odbc.defaultlrl' , '65536' );

Lance (2007-08-25 02:03:19)

If you want to update a "text" field > 1,000 odd characters you must use WRITETEXT or UPDATETEXT.. how you ask:
function mssql_updatetext($db_name, $table_name, $field_name, $where, $text) {
// assume mssql db link already created etc
$str_pos=0;
$buffer_len = 1024;
mssql_query("EXEC sp_dboption '{$db_name}', 'select into/bulkcopy', 'true'");
while ($str_pos < strlen($text)) {
$buffer = str_replace("'", "''", substr($text, $str_pos, $buffer_len)); // escape buffer
mssql_query("DECLARE @ptrval binary(16)
SELECT @ptrval = TEXTPTR($field)
FROM [$table]
WHERE $where
UPDATETEXT [{$table}].$field @ptrval $str_pos NULL $buffer");
$str_pos += $buffer_len;
}
mssql_query("EXEC sp_dboption '$db_name', 'select into/bulkcopy', 'false'");

return true;
}
// test it using "pubs" > pub_info.pr_info
mssql_updatetext(
$db_name='pubs',
$table_name='pub_info',
$field_name='pr_info',
$where='pub_id = 9999',
$text=str_repeat("This is a long bit of text \r\n", 1000)
);

pance -at- stratcom -dot- ca (2007-08-24 06:43:41)

DATE FORMATS
Format # Query (current date: 12/30/2006) Sample
1 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 1) 12/30/06
2 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 2) 06.12.30
3 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 3) 30/12/06
4 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 4) 30.12.06
5 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 5) 30-12-06
6 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 6) 30 Dec 06
7 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 7) Dec 30, 06
10 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 10) 12-30-06
11 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 11) 06/12/30
101 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 101) 12/30/2006
102 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 102) 2006.12.30
103 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 103) 30/12/2006
104 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 104) 30.12.2006
105 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 105) 30-12-2006
106 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 106) 30 Dec 2006
107 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 107) Dec 30, 2006
110 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 110) 12-30-2006
111 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 111) 2006/12/30

TIME FORMATS
8 or 108 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 8) 00:38:54
9 or 109 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 9) Dec 30 2006 12:38:54:840AM
14 or 114 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 14) 00:38:54:840

pance at stratcom dot ca (2007-08-24 06:22:16)

DATE FORMATS
Format # Query (current date: 12/30/2006) Sample
1 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 1) 12/30/06
2 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 2) 06.12.30
3 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 3) 30/12/06
4 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 4) 30.12.06
5 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 5) 30-12-06
6 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 6) 30 Dec 06
7 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 7) Dec 30, 06
10 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 10) 12-30-06
11 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 11) 06/12/30
101 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 101) 12/30/2006
102 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 102) 2006.12.30
103 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 103) 30/12/2006
104 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 104) 30.12.2006
105 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 105) 30-12-2006
106 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 106) 30 Dec 2006
107 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 107) Dec 30, 2006
110 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 110) 12-30-2006
111 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 111) 2006/12/30

TIME FORMATS
8 or 108 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 8) 00:38:54
9 or 109 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 9) Dec 30 2006 12:38:54:840AM
14 or 114 select convert(varchar, getdate(), 14) 00:38:54:840

andrei_mole at yahoo dot com (2007-04-24 03:10:27)

if you have a query that returns results in mssql, but run from php using mssql_query doesn't, check if you have any nvarchar fields and convert them to text using:
convert(text,nvarchar_field).

muratyaman at gmail dot com (2007-01-24 10:57:30)

It is annoying that MSSQL does not return proper error numbers.
For example: run a simple "INSERT INTO ..." query that will cause an error and see it.
All I get is:
Code: HY000
Message: (below)
SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 10007 INSERT statement conflicted with COLUMN FOREIGN KEY constraint 'FK...'. The conflict occurred in database 'DB...', table 'TBL...', column 'COL...'. [10007] (severity 5) [INSERT INTO ... ]
'HY000' does not help me at all and same thing is returned for other errors as well. (I am not sure, but if 10007 is the number I am looking for, I do NOT want to parse the error messages. Then why do we have the notion of "err_code and err_message"?)
I think, running the following just after the 'failed' query may help:
$err = your_query_and_fetch_row_func ('select @@error');
Cheers!
Murat
P.S. Firebird rocks! ;)

php at digitalbacon dot us (2006-12-29 17:41:02)

When using this function on Linux with the FreeTDS dblib driver, some system stored procedures can return NULL values. This is because Microsoft SQL Server also uses a Windows-specific variant type in addition to the standard SQL types... like VB & OLE variants. For example:

<?php

// this works fine on Windows (using ntwdblib.dll)
$r = mssql_query(
'SELECT SERVERPROPERTY(\'productversion\')'
);

// but, you might want to do this instead (for Linux portability)
$r = mssql_query(
'SELECT CAST(SERVERPROPERTY(\'productversion\') AS VARCHAR)'
);

?>

vollmer at ampache dot org (2006-10-02 08:52:02)

You need to escape ' with '' in mssql, however while doing a large dataset migration I ran into an issue with \0 (NULL) in the strings breaking the query. I ended up writting the below small little function, I'm sure it could be done faster/better but it has served me well. 

<?php
function sqlEscape($sql) {
 
        /* De MagicQuotes */
        $fix_str        = stripslashes($sql);
    $fix_str    = str_replace("'","''",$sql);
    $fix_str     = str_replace("\0","[NULL]",$fix_str);

    return $fix_str;

} // sqlEscape
?>

haakon (2006-09-30 02:09:27)

>>> So, switch your data type to text if you wish to have lengths more than 256 characters
or use
$sql = "SELECT CONVERT(TEXT, FieldName) FROM Table"

patrick dot krecker at asu dot edu (2006-09-15 14:58:41)

NOTE that the DB library that is internally driving these functions will NOT return more than 256 characters for data types varchar are char. After SQL Server 7 they allowed for lengths of up to 8000, but never updated the library. This drove me crazy for a day (all other connectivity worked from Java and C#, just not PHP). So, switch your data type to text if you wish to have lengths more than 256 characters.
I believe this is not techinically considered a bug; I checked the bug reports section and all reports on this issue were closed with a message indicating this.

cuzco (2006-08-31 11:47:44)

This one took me several days to figure out so I thought I'd post the solution to save others the hassle.

When using mssql_query with freetds inside a php class, you *MUST* include the "link_identifier" in the mssql_query() call otherwise all your queries will fail. This differs from MySQL where omitting the link identifier works without problem.

Here's an example class to illustrate the problem/solution

<?php
    class MSSQLDB
    {
        var $db_connection;
        
        // Constructor
        function __construct($inFreeTDSServerName, $inUser, $inPassword, $inDatabaseName) 
        {
            $this->db_connection    = mssql_connect($inFreeTDSServerName, $inUser,$inPassword)
                        or die('Could not connect to '.$inFreeTDSServerName.' server');
                        
            mssql_select_db($inDatabaseName)
                        or die('Could not select to '.$inDatabaseName.' database');
        }
        
        // Generic query function
        function query_database($inQuery)
        {
            // Always include the link identifier (in this case $this->db_connection) in mssql_query
            $query_result     = mssql_query($query, $this->db_connection) 
                                                or die('Query failed: '.$query);
            
            if (strpos($inQuery, 'insert') === false)
            {
                // fetch the results as an array
                $result            = array();
                while ($row = mssql_fetch_object($query_result)) 
                {
                    $result[]    = $row;
                }
                
                // dispose of the query
                mssql_free_result($query_result);
            
                // return result
                return $result;
            }
            else
            {
                // dispose of the query
                mssql_free_result($query_result);
                
                // get the last insert id
                $query            = 'select SCOPE_IDENTITY() AS last_insert_id';
                $query_result     = mssql_query($query) 
                                            or die('Query failed: '.$query);
                                            
                $query_result    = mssql_fetch_object($query_result);
                
                mssql_free_result($query_result);
                
                return $query_result->last_insert_id;
            }
        }
    }
?>

And to use the class with the following freetds.conf record

[SomeDatabaseServer]
    host = somedbserver.com
    port = 1433
    tds version = 8.0

<?php
    $db                = new MSSQLDB('SomeDatabaseServer', 'user', 'password', 'database');
    $query            = "select * from table";
    return $db->query_database($query);
?>

huberkev11 at hotmail dot com (2006-05-12 08:47:42)

Solution for the following Error:
Warning: mssql_query() [function.mssql-query]: message: Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library (such as ISQL) or ODBC version 3.7 or earlier.
This is because you are using column types of like ntext instead of text. There are 2 solutions.
1. Change all ntext column types to text or
2. Your query must look like: SELECT CAST(field1 AS TEXT) AS field1 FROM table

taavi at mydomainhere dot com (2006-04-18 21:49:01)

watch out for mssql.timeout configuration value - if you dealing with scripts that take long time to run (backup managment, dts jobs), it might just stop running query in the middle without giving any php or sql error.

km at mcminndigital dot com (2006-04-18 11:17:02)

Another note for the archives:
If for some reason you aren't on a windows platform (using FreeTDS etc), or on a older windows platform and are having a hard time with unicode errors with ntext and images there are two things to do:
1) make sure you odbc drivers are up to date
:: or ::
2) make sure to convert any ntext or image fields in your select. If you need an image from a select then you are stuck with upgrading your odbc drivers if you are getting unicode errors.
Use mssql_field_type to get your field types however you want.
SELECT [Name], [UserID], [SomeValue], convert(TEXT, [Description]) FROM [MyDB.[dbo].[MyTable];

(2006-04-14 16:35:54)

If you are having problems with truncated text fields from mssql queries (pe. at 4096 characters), try some of the following:
in php.ini:
- mssql.textlimit = 65536
- mssql.textsize = 65536
in your php code, before your queries:
- mssql_query ( 'SET TEXTSIZE 65536' , $myConn );
- ini_set ( 'mssql.textlimit' , '65536' );
- ini_set ( 'mssql.textsize' , '65536' );

andrei_mole at yahoo dot com (2006-04-07 01:30:49)

if anyone has faced a problem with displaying images from mssql image field it could be that they have an ole header put by sql.
here is an example. hope it helps:

<?php 
$db=mssql_connect("server","user","pass"); 
$d=mssql_select_db("NorthWind", $db); 
$sql = "SELECT Picture FROM Categories WHERE CategoryId=2"; 
$res = mssql_query($sql); 
$row = mssql_fetch_array($res); 
$data = $row['Picture']; 
header("Content-Type: image/bmp"); 
//remove the ole header
$data = substr($data,78); 
//print the pic in the browser
echo $data; 
mssql_close(); 
?>

augustinus at netsession dot net (2006-03-01 10:53:26)

Regarding the note of jesse at lostangel dot net, written on 17-Sep-2002 03:33 implementing the mysql_insert_id function for MSSQL I have a remark:
The example hasn't worked on my database server (SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition with SP3a, english) so i just left of the exec statement.
Instead I used:
$result = mssql_query("INSERT INTO STUFF(gaga,otherGaga) VALUES ('hello','apple'); SELECT @@IDENTITY as insertId;");
list ($gagaId) = mssql_fetch_row($result);

Rizwan Khan (2006-02-22 14:47:06)

MSSQL will not let you use TEXT data in the where clause, TEXT data is BLOG data, its max size is 2,147,483,647 bytes (each character occupies one byte).
The varchar and char can have max of 8000 characters, so you can use text data in a where clause if you convert as follows convert(varchar(8000),SOMETEXTDATA)
select * from tHistory where myNotes=convert(varchar(8000),SOMETEXTDATA)

Rizwan Khan (2006-02-22 14:37:30)

Just explaining how to get date in YYYY-MM-DD format much easily, when you use convert function in SQL you usually give the format as one of the arguments. for example <br>
select convert(varchar(20),getdate(),20)<br>
select convert(varchar(20),getdate(),120)<br>
will both return dates in yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss(24h) format. you can also use <br>
select convert(varchar(20),getdate(),21)<br>
select convert(varchar(20),getdate(),121)<br>
in yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss.mmm(24h) formats.<br>
So now when you have the date as string from either of the four convert functions you can either take the left part of the string or use a substring function to get the date in YYYY-MM-DD format.<br>
following are few examples.<br>
select left(convert(varchar(20),getdate(),20),10)<br>
select left(convert(varchar(20),getdate(),120),10)<br>
select left(convert(varchar(20),getdate(),21),10)<br>
select left(convert(varchar(20),getdate(),121),10)<br>
select substring(convert(varchar(20),getdate(),20),1,10)<br>
select substring(convert(varchar(20),getdate(),20),1,10)<br>
select substring(convert(varchar(20),getdate(),120),1,10)<br>
select substring(convert(varchar(20),getdate(),21),1,10)<br>
select substring(convert(varchar(20),getdate(),121),1,10)<br>

tristanx3 at rogers dot com (2005-12-30 07:35:09)

It would appear that MSSQL will not let you use fields of the TEXT data type in WHERE clauses.

I tried running a simple query to get account data for a particular user based on email address, but the command was not returning any data.  I finally realized that this was because the emailaddress column was of the data type TEXT.  When I changed the WHERE clause in the query to test against a name, which was of type VARCHAR, the query worked perfectly.

I overcame this problem by converting the TEXT field to VARCHAR in the WHERE clause, as noted below:

<?php
### Field 'emailaddress' is of data type TEXT in the SQL database

# This would not work!
$sql = "SELECT * FROM accounts WHERE emailaddress = 'test@test.com'";

# Converting the data type inline solved the problem
$sql = "SELECT * FROM accounts WHERE CONVERT( VARCHAR, emailaddress ) = 'test@test.com'";
?>

This seems to have solved my problem, although I am still unsure of the limits (if any) to this solution.

(2005-09-12 03:18:11)

To get column of type datetime as varchar in format: "YYYY-MM-DD" you should use:
$query = "SELECT
CAST(DATEPART(YYYY,row_date) AS CHAR(4)) + '-'
+ RIGHT(CAST(100+DATEPART(MM,row_date) AS CHAR(3)),2) + '-'
+ RIGHT(CAST(100+DATEPART(DD,row_date) AS CHAR(3)),2) + '' AS row_date,
FROM TABLENAME WHERE id = '$id'";
(Where "row_date" is of type datetime)

(2005-09-11 13:32:30)

Another way how to use dates in queries:
$createdate="2005-01-30";
$query = "
DECLARE @newdate datetime;
SELECT @newdate=convert(varchar(100), '$createdate', 102);
INSERT INTO TABLE(NUMBER, DATE) VALUES ('$num', @newdate);"
and fire the query....

php at syntax101 dot com (2005-07-08 08:40:01)

On certain server setups simply replacing a single quote with two single quotes will result in:
you\''d
I use the following function for single quote escaping quote for MSsql:
function escapeSingleQuotes($string){
//escapse single quotes
$singQuotePattern = "'";
$singQuoteReplace = "''";
return(stripslashes(eregi_replace($singQuotePattern, $singQuoteReplace, $string)));
}

php at syntax101 dot com (2005-07-08 08:39:46)

On certain server setups simple replacing a single quote with two single quotes will result in:
you\''d
I use the following function for single quote escaping quote for MSsql:
function escapeSingleQuotes($string){
//escapse single quotes
$singQuotePattern = "'";
$singQuoteReplace = "''";
return(stripslashes(eregi_replace($singQuotePattern, $singQuoteReplace, $string)));
}

rzachris at yahoo dot com (2005-05-19 13:25:18)

If you're having problems trying to get data stored in a varchar column with more than 255 chars use CONVERT to change the data type to TEXT like this:
$query=mssql_query("SELECT table.id, CONVERT(TEXT, table.comment) AS comment FROM table");
Don't forget to set name for the column (AS comment) or you won't be able to retrieve the data ...

Ben Mullins (2005-02-01 06:11:04)

Although mssql_query does not support datetime paramaters with stored procedures, there is a simple way of getting around it.
Bind the parameter as a string i.e. SQLVARCHAR or SQLCHAR
mssql_bind($stmt, "@JoinDate", value, SQLVARCHAR, false,null,19);
and then use the sql server function CONVERT() in your stored procedure to convert the parameter to a datetime variable before using it.
SELECT @JD = convert(datetime,@JoinDate,103)

warwick dot barnes at aad dot gov dot au (2005-01-11 16:13:49)

Using PHP 4.3.9 and MSSQL Library 7.0, when I try to SELECT text from a column (field) defined as VARCHAR 8000 I get only the first 255 characters of the text - it's trucated for no apparent reason.
To get round this I changed the column type from VARCHAR 8000 to TEXT, but then the output was trucated to 4096 characters.
To fix this I changed two values in PHP.INI:
mssql.textlimit = 16384
mssql.textsize = 16384
Now my text is trucated to 16384 characters, which is big enough for me - but you can apparently use a value as large as 2147483647.

roger4a45 at yahoo dot es (2004-10-27 14:15:56)

Using Aplication Role with PHP
Introduction
Aplication Role is a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 feature that allow to make control what "source" use your data. It means that you can allow select, inset or update operation from your PHP code and deny it from and ODBC source, Microsoft Access or any kind of application that want to use your data.
Scenario:
Imagina you have a DAtabase named MYDB. This DB has three table. TABLEA, TABLEB and TABLEC. Imagine that your user named 'nemesis' can access to TABLEA from anywhere but you want that from table B and C access from your PHP code.
Follow this steps
[From your MSSQL Administrator]
1 -. From your Database MYDB create a new role (Standard Role). Insert this user inside this role.
2 -. Edit permisions and deny any operation at TABLEB and TABLEC.
3 -. Create a new Role (Aplication Role). For intance it named 'myaccess' with a password 'anypassword'.
4 -. Edit permisions and allow any operation you wish at TABLEB and TABLEC
[From your source] (I don't include any control errors to simplify source)
$s = mssql_connect('MYSERVER','nemesis','nemesispassword');
$b = mssql_select_db('MYDB',$s);
//This one activate application role. Any user permision are
//ignored. User permision are override with application role
// permisions.
$query = "EXEC sp_setapprole 'myaccess', 'anypassword'";
$b = mssql_query($query);
$result = mssql_query('SELECT * FROM TABLEB,$s);
[...]
Note: If you kill "$query = ..." you will find out that SELECT fails. If you insert that line $quey will be succeed. Now, nemesis only can take data from TABLEB and TABLEC through your PHP code. If he/She try to use that data through ODBC driver then he can not do it.
NOte: Application role drops when you make a mssql_close.

dennis at -nospam- darknoise d0t de (2004-09-27 05:02:56)

In response to post from jesse at lostangel dot net from 18-Sep-2002:
INSERT ...
SELECT @@IDENTITY
may NOT work as desired!
While running multiple queries at the same time, you will get the last identity value generated, somewhere in your database.
If you need to know the identity value generated by your INSERT statement, use SCOPE_IDENTITY().

aleks [aleks AT linuxgalaxy DOT org] (2004-04-16 13:39:21)

Just in case anyone is having problems with mssql_query calling a procedure, where the procedure has multiple SELECTs, INSERTs and/or UPDATEs and some do not return any kind of a result, but some do.
When trying to run mssql_query in that case an error: "Warning: mssql_fetch_array(): 1 is not a Sybase result index in ..." would result, or if one uses something like "SELECT @@IDENTITY" to return something for those statements an error: "Expected dbnextrow() to return NO_MORE_ROWS." would result.
A simple fix for the error(s) is to use "SET NOCOUNT ON" statement before any statements that do not return anything and then "SET NOCOUNT OFF" before any statements that do.
--Aleks

labrat457_minusthispart!_*-*_!yahoo.com (2004-02-04 10:50:06)

You can run a stored proceedure AND get back a result set from mssql_query(). I figured this little trick out when I realized I couldn't use the mssql_init() function group for my stored procedure stuff as I needed datetime variables to be passed, and they are not supported. However, you can "encapsulate" a snippet of stored procedure within a normal query that can be executed via mssql_query() and have a result value returned. For example, here's a query which passes a store's local date and time to a stored procedure that converts it to the GMT values that is used internally by the rest of the database structure:
$temptime=time();
$storeid = 68;
$deptid = 70;
$StartDate = strftime("%b %d %Y %H:%M:%S",$temptime);
$spquery="
BEGIN
DECLARE @date datetime,
@GMreturn datetime
SELECT @date='$StartDate'
execute TZ_toGMT '$storeid','$deptid',@date,@GMreturn OUTPUT
SELECT @GMreturn
END";
Now, when $spquery is passed to mssql_query(), it will return with a value for @GMreturn, which can be parsed out with mssql_fetch_array() as with any other query.

papaggel at csd dot uoc dot gr (2003-11-20 15:16:58)

If you try to INSERT a large string to a MSSQLServer 2000 table attribute of type nvarchar/varchar/text/nchar/char, but it is limited to the first 256 characters do the following:
1. Open Tools->SQL Query Analyzer
2. In SQL Query Analyzer
i. Go to Tools->Options
ii. Select the "Results" tab
iii. Change "Maximum characters per column" to something else

Me (2003-08-29 12:53:16)

Kelsey made a note that the only character that MSSQL needs "escaping" is the single quote ', and it done by using two single quotes ''. You will want to make sure that, when using strings, you contain the strings in single quotes, since you can't escape double quotes.
In addition, you won't find a mssql_escape_string() function (though there are for other DB's, i.e. mysql_escape_string()), but using:
$escapedString = str_replace("'","''",$stringToEscape);
Will accomplish the same thing.

jagos at ebrno dot net (2003-07-24 04:27:23)

This's note about mssql and truncating binary output from database (mostly image ...), i spent about 2 days tuning this stuff and fortunately i made the hit ...
so if you're experiencing truncates of your binary data read from mssql database (it looks like incomplete, broken or even no images) check mssql section of your php.ini file and set values of mssql.textlimit and mssql.textsize variables to their maximum (2147483647) or at least bigger size than the default is ... so i hope it helps a bit, have a good time

arnarb at oddi dot is (2003-04-30 06:16:24)

If you'd like to store binary data, such as an image, in MSSQL, it's common to have problems with addslashes and co.
This is because the MSSQL parser makes a clear distinction between binary an character constants. You can therefore not easilly insert binary data with "column = '$data'" syntax like in MySQL and others.
The MSSQL documentation states that binary constants should be represented by their unquoted hexadecimal byte-string. That is.. to set the binary column "col" to contain the bytes 0x12, 0x65 and 0x35 you shold do "col = 0x126535" in you query.
I've successfully stored and retrieved jpeg images in a column with the "image" datatype. Here's how:
// storing a file
$datastring = file_get_contents("img.jpg");
$data = unpack("H*hex", $datastring);
mssql_query("insert into images (name, data)
values ('img.jpg', 0x".$data['hex'].")");
// retrieving
$result = mssql_query("select data from images where name = 'img.jpg'");
$row = mssql_fetch_assoc($result);
header("Content-type: image/jpeg;");
echo $row['data'];
As you can see there is nothing to do with the image on they way out, just blurb out the buffer your recieve as with any other field type.

AzRaH (2003-02-28 14:15:40)

If you are experiencing TRUNCATING issues trying to return more than 4096 bytes on a VARCHAR field try converting it to text:
CONVERT(TEXT, Yourfield)
EX:
$sql->db_select("SELECT cc_main.cc_entry_id, CONVERT(TEXT, cc_main.comment) FROM cc_main");

wind at wag dot nl (2002-11-14 12:55:40)

Had a similar problem to Jesse
What I experienced with Microsoft SQLserver 2000 and PHP 4.1.2 was that if you execute a query consisting of multiple queries separated by a semicolon with mssql_query is that the queries themselves are executed but the connection is dropped immediately after that. It seems that the phpdriver doesn't count on this.
The EXEC solution (or maybe sp_executesql) works fine in these cases because to the db-library it is one statement.

php at netznacht dot de (2002-10-11 04:12:52)

Just tried to give a string:
Welcome at Mike's to the SQL Server:
He misinterpreted the \' as the end of the String.
MySQL will resolve \' and not think that the String has ended.
You should replace the \' before constructing the MSSQL Query string.

jesse at lostangel dot net (2002-09-17 15:33:59)

While trying to return a @@IDENTITY after an INSERT statement, the only way I could get a valid return result was to encapsulate the query within an EXEC like so:
$result = mssql_query("
exec(\"
INSERT INTO Files
(ownerId, name, sizeKB, path)
VALUES ('$contactId', '$userfile_name', '$filesize', '$path')
SELECT @@IDENTITY as fileId\")
");
list($fileId) = mssql_fetch_row($result);
This returned the appropriate @@IDENTITY in a valid result set. Not sure if mssql supports multiple inline commands or not. But that assumption would back the useage of the EXEC command in order to execute these properly.

adamhooper at videotron dot ca (2002-07-15 11:15:37)

As with all _query() functions, if there is no database connection and mssql_connect() fails, the return value will be NULL (not false).

cusaacb at squared dot com (2002-06-20 12:04:15)

Using the latest version of freetds with support for tds ver 7.0. I could not get more than 256 characters on varchar until I set the environment variable TDSVER=70.
Then it correctly returns all of the field.

arthur dot mcgibbon at btinternet dot com (2002-04-08 20:01:37)

The mssql_execute etc. commands for stored procs do not seem to support a DATETIME type.
This means using mssql_query.
Now problems occur when you want to use parameters that have Input values and Output values. SQL Server refuses to acknowledge the following...
declare @ret int, @i int
select @i = 25
exec @ret = testsp @Param1 = @i output
select @ret, @i
It doesn't like 2 select statements, even when the first is changed to "set".
To get round this, put the whole query into an exec command.
e.g.
mssql_query("exec('declare @ret int, @i int
select @i = 25
exec @ret = testsp @Param1 = @i output
select @ret, @i')"
This seems to work fine.

wraithgar at hotmail dot com (2001-07-31 13:49:59)

We are using --with-sybase=/opt/sybase-11.9.2/
We had a problem at first getting mssql results w/ a text field to return anything more than 4096 bytes.
The mssql.textlimit and mssql.textsize parameters in php.ini had no effect on this.
Turns out you can control this from the mssql end w/ one simple query
mssql_query("set textsize 65536");
Of course, 65536 is just an example, use whatever value you need to get back as a max.
We tested it and the setting stayed through the whole connection, no need to run that query before EVERY one of your real queries. However, it didn't seem to retain across sessions.. (sorry, can't simply run the query once and forget about it)
Hope this helps others who are banging their head on a wall like we were.