Query only works w/ smart quotes?

The ` character (I always called it a "backquote", mysql reference calls it a "backtick".) is what mysql uses to wrap field, table and database names. That is just hte way it was programmed. If you are not using anythng special in the names, you don't need them

ie. SELECT payrate FROM employees

However, if you ever use a variable for the field,table or db name, wrap it in the quote.

ie $sql = "SELECT payrate FROM `" . $employeeTable . "`"

The current project I maintain, about a year ago I ran into this problem. couldn't figure out why a new user crashed out. Here it was becasue of the hyphen in the username he picked.

I quickly realized they were needed, especially in case someone created a username that happened to be a keyword in mySQL (ie. create, select, insert, from, where)

ie. User WHERE tries to get data via above example sql statement, but without the backticks, would translate to this SQL being issued to the server: SELECT payrate FROM where (I'm sure you can see the problem here). With backticks, you get SELECT payrate FROM `where`

-Greg

I took the quotes off of the table name and put them around the variable and am still getting the error message about the query result not being an object

$query = "SELECT * FROM ajax-zipcodes WHERE zipcode=`" .$zip. "`";

You still need them around the table name becasue of the hyphen in there. My reference to using them around a variable was if you are using the variable in place of a field name, table name or db name (which you are not).

-Greg

Ah, that's it. Thanks