Prepared Statements

Using prepared statements allows you to write SQL queries manually while still escaping the query values automatically to prevent SQL injection. Creating a query is simple:

$query = DB::query(Database::SELECT, 'SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :user');

The DB::query method is just a shortcut that creates a new Database_Query class for us, to allow method chaining. The query contains a :user parameter, which we will get to in a second.

The first parameter of DB::query is the type of query. It should be Database::SELECT, Database::INSERT, Database::UPDATE, or Database::DELETE. This is done for compatibility reasons for drivers, and to easily determine what execute() should return.

The second parameter is the query itself. Rather than trying to concatenate your query and variables together, you should make use of Database_Query::param. This will make your queries much easier to mantain, and will escape the values to prevent SQL injection.


Our example query earlier contains a :user parameter, which we can assign to a value using Database_Query::param like so:

$query->param(':user', 'john');

Parameter names can be any unique string, as they are replaced using strtr. It is highly recommended to not use dollars signs as parameter names to prevent confusion. Colons are commonly used.

You can also update the :user parameter by calling Database_Query::param again:

$query->param(':user', $_GET['search']);

If you want to set multiple parameters at once, you can use Database_Query::parameters.

$query = DB::query(Database::SELECT, 'SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :user AND status = :status');

    ':user' => 'john',
    ':status' => 'active',

It is also possible to bind a parameter to a variable, using a variable reference. This can be extremely useful when running the same query many times:

$query = DB::query(Database::INSERT, 'INSERT INTO users (username, password) VALUES (:user, :pass)')
    ->bind(':user', $username)
    ->bind(':pass', $password);

foreach ($new_users as $username => $password)

In the above example, the variables $username and $password are changed for every loop of the foreach statement. When the parameter changes, it effectively changes the :user and :pass query parameters. Careful parameter binding can save a lot of code when it is used properly.

The only difference between param() and bind() is that bind() passes the variable by reference rather than by assignment (copied), so future changes to the variable can be "seen" by the query.

Although all parameters are escaped to prevent SQL injection, it is still a good idea to validate/sanitize your input.

Display the raw query

If you want to display the SQL that will be executed, simply cast the object to a string:

echo Kohana::debug((string) $query);
// Should display:
// SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = 'john'


Once you have assigned something to each of the parameters, you can execute the query using execute() and use the results.

$result = $query->execute();

To use a different database config group pass either the name or the config object to execute().

$result = $query->execute('config_name')