MySQL - Data with the symbol "&" - mysql

Question

I have the below data in my MySQL table "categories":
id Name
-----------------
1 Books & CDs
2 Dress
When I try to get the value from table it works fine with below SQL.
SELECT * FROM `categories` WHERE `name` = 'Books & Cds';
But when using in PHP, it gives me some SQL error.
SQLSTATE[42000]: Syntax error or access violation: 1064 You have an
error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your
MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 5
Where can I find the actual reason for this? How to debug this?

Answer 1

If you want to search for rows in your Category table in your PHP code, I recommend that you add a column in your table for a code to use instead of searching on the name that you use for the end users. The potential problem that you're facing is that if you want to change the name of a category, you'd have to find everywhere in your code that you referred to that category by name and change it too. But if your table looked like this:
ID code name
1 BCDS Books & CDs
2 DRS Dress
then your code can do things like "where code = 'BCDS'" and you can call that category "Books & CDs", "CDs and Books", or anything else you like.
Now, as far as fixing your syntax problem, you'll have to post the PHP that you use to generate the query that fails. As another poster said, you're probably escaping something incorrectly and MySQL isn't getting the query you think it's getting.