How to INSERT data into a MySQL database in WordPress

A guide on how to use Prepared Statements in WordPress to safely and effectively insert data into a MySQL database.

In this article, you will learn how to use WordPress to insert data into a table in the MySQL database using Prepared Statements, which helps protect your data from SQL injection attacks.

global $wpdb;

// INSERT statement with Prepared Statement
$insert_query = $wpdb->prepare(
    "INSERT INTO wp_students (name, age) VALUES (%s, %d)",
    'John Doe', 25
);

// Execute the INSERT statement
$result = $wpdb->query($insert_query);

// Check the result
if ($result) {
    echo "Data has been inserted successfully.";
} else {
    echo "An error occurred while inserting data.";
}

Detailed explanation:

1. global $wpdb;: Uses the global $wpdb variable to access the WordPress database connection object.
2. $insert_query = $wpdb->prepare(...): Defines the INSERT statement with parameters, where %s indicates a string type and %d indicates an integer type.
3. VALUES (%s, %d): Specifies the values to be inserted into the columns of the wp_students table.
4. $result = $wpdb->query($insert_query);: Executes the INSERT statement and stores the result in the $result variable.
5. if ($result) {...}: Checks whether the statement executed successfully, if so, displays a success message; otherwise, displays an error message.

System Requirements:

• WordPress (Version 5.x or higher)
• PHP 7.x or higher
• MySQL Database

How to install the libraries needed to run the PHP code above:

No additional libraries need to be installed as $wpdb is part of WordPress.

Tips:

• Ensure that you have created the wp_students table in your WordPress database before attempting to insert data.
• Double-check data types to avoid errors when inserting data into the database.