How to make SQL query more readable in PHP?

Question

When you have a long fields in SQL query, how do you make it more readable?

For example:

public function findSomethingByFieldNameId($Id) {
        $sql = "SELECT field1, field2, field3 as Field3_Something, field4, field5, field6, field7, field8, field9
                      FROM table
               JOIN table2 AS TNS ON TNS.id = table.id
                      WHERE something = 1";
 return $this->db->fetchData($sql, null, 'all');
    }

Answer 1

You can concatenate it like this to make it more readable:

$sql = "SELECT field1, field2, field3 as Field3_Something,";
$sql.= " field4, field5, field6, field7, field8, field9";
$sql.= " FROM table JOIN table2 AS TNS ON TNS.id = table.id";
$sql.= " WHERE something = 1";

Note: Be sure while concatinating your query, don't forget to leave spaces before you start a new line between your double quotes, else you'll get query invalid error

Answer 2

I prefer Heredoc syntax, though Nowdoc would also work for your example:

Heredoc:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.syntax.heredoc

Nowdoc: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.syntax.nowdoc

The advantage with both is you can copy and paste straight SQL to and from this block without having to escape or format it. If you needed to include parsing, such as you would do with variables from a double-quoted string, you'd use Heredoc. Nowdoc behaves like single-quotes.

Nowdoc:

public function findSomethingByFieldNameId($Id) {
    $sql = <<<'SQL'
    SELECT field1, field2, field3 as Field3_Something, field4, field5, field6, field7, field8, field9
    FROM table
    JOIN table2 AS TNS ON TNS.id = table.id
    WHERE something = 1
SQL;

    return $this->db->fetchData($sql, null, 'all');
}

Heredoc:

public function findSomethingByFieldNameId($Id) {
    $sql = <<<SQL
    SELECT field1, field2, field3 as Field3_Something, field4, field5, field6, field7, field8, field9
    FROM table
    JOIN table2 AS TNS ON TNS.id = table.id
    WHERE something = '$Id'
SQL;

    $sql = mysql_real_escape_string($sql);

    return $this->db->fetchData($sql, null, 'all');
}

Answer 3

 $sql = "SELECT field1,
                field2,
                field3 as Field3_Something,
                field4,....
         FROM table
         JOIN table2 AS TNS ON TNS.id = table.id
         WHERE something = 1";

Answer 4

This is just another way.

Note that array join is faster than string concatenation.

$sql = join(" \n", Array(
    'SELECT ',
    '    [...fields...]',
    '    [...more fields...]',
    'FROM table',
    'JOIN table2 AS TNS ON TNS.id = table.id',
    'WHERE something = 1',
));

Answer 5

<?php
   public function findSomethingByFieldNameId($Id) {
        $sql = "SELECT 
                    field1, 
                    field2, 
                    field3 as Field3_Something, 
                    field4, 
                    field5, 
                    field6, 
                    field7, 
                    field8, 
                    field9
                FROM 
                    table
                JOIN table2 AS TNS 
                    ON TNS.id = table.id
                WHERE 
                    something = 1";
        return $this->db->fetchData($sql, null, 'all');
}
?>

Answer 6

Personally, I think the sprintf is the best approach for this, since it's structure is much similar to the prepared statement that some SQL servers accept.

$sql = sprintf(
    'SELECT
        field1 as something,
        field2,
        field3 as Field3_Something,
        field4,
        field5,
        field6,
        field7,
        field8,
        field9
    FROM table
    JOIN table2 AS TNS 
        ON TNS.id = table.id
    WHERE something = %s',
    1
);

I tried using the Heredoc approach but it complicate things if you are using objects and not only single variables.