http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=314848

SpritusMaximus has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Fellow monks, I have an odd database problem. I'm implementing user registration on my website; in my user validation, I have code like this:
$SQL = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Members WHERE Nickname = '?'"; $Statement = $Database->prepare($SQL); $Statement->execute($NickName); my @numrows = $Statement->fetchrow_array; rint "NumRows: @numrows"; if (($Statement->rows) > 0) { LogError("NICK_TAKEN"); return("-1"); }
The problem is this: I can never get the $Statement to return anything when selecting a Nickname I know exists. If I try this in the mysql monitor (using the same user login and machine as this script runs on, and the exact same query), I get back one row; but inside this script, nothing. I've also tried my $NumRows = $Statement->rows but that always returns zero rows. I'm using CGI.PM with fatalstobrowser. I tried modifying the username, and it expectedly spits out a database login error with the modified username - but with the "correct" username, I get nothing. I've done things like this before without a problem. Where can I look that would give me an indication of what is breaking down?

UPDATE: Thanks for the hints, everyone. I should have clarified earlier that I actually tried to select the rows and then count them, then I read the CPAN warning and decided to use SELECT COUNT(*) instead. In the end, removing the single quotes worked.