Handling Single-Column Single-Record Mysql Result

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January 23rd, 2004, 03:56 AM

bluephoenix

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Handling Single-Column Single-Record Mysql Result

I'm helping a friend stumble through writing some very basic authentication scripts using php and mysql.

Our relevent PHP code follows:

php Code:

Original - php Code

<?php
  $name = $_POST['name'];
  $password = $_POST['pass'];
 
  $server = mysql_connect("localhost", "PHPUSER", "PHP123");
  mysql_select_db("DND");
  $result = mysql_query("SELECT USER_PASSWD FROM DNDAUTH WHERE USER_ID='$name'")
            or die("Invalid Query!" . msql_error());
 
  list($incomming_password) = mysql_fetch_row($result);
  mysql_close($server);
 
  if ($password == $incomming_password)
    echo "$name authenticated.";
  else
    header("Location: login.html");
?>

I really couldn't see the use of forming the query SELECT * FROM DNDAUTH because we're only interested in the one value, USER_PASSWD. But it seems a bit of a waste to extract the value out through an array and then through list().

Is there a better way to do this, or is this pretty much standard and it just seems weird to me because we're returning a single column single record?

Thanks.

Tim

January 23rd, 2004, 04:09 AM

CodeKadiya

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RE: Handling Single-Column Single-Record Mysql Result

I'd code authentication scripts in this way. Just check it out, you'll see what I do.

php Code:

Original - php Code

 
<?php
  $name = $_POST['name'];
  $password = $_POST['pass'];
 
  $server = mysql_connect("localhost", "PHPUSER", "PHP123") or die("Couldn't connect");
  mysql_select_db("DND",$server) or die("Couldn't select DB");
  $result = mysql_query("SELECT USER_ID,PASSWD FROM DNDAUTH WHERE USER_ID='$name' AND PASSWD='$password'")
            or die("Invalid Query!" . mysql_error());
 
  mysql_close($server);
 
  if (mysql_num_rows($result)>0)
    echo "$name authenticated.";
  else
    header("Location: login.html");
?>

January 23rd, 2004, 04:12 AM

bluephoenix

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Posts: 508

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RE: Handling Single-Column Single-Record Mysql Result

pretty sly

Thanks!

January 7th, 2009, 12:34 AM

anderswc

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OK, sorry for bumping a super old post (as in 5 years!) but I found this on Google, and others are likely to do so as well.

The first piece of code given would accept a login if an invalid username and an empty password were passed in.
The second piece of code could easily be tricked by using SQL injection to return ANY value. Escaping all input code would fix this problem.

Again, sorry for bumping such an old thread, but I don't want someones security to be compromised by reading this.

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