UPDATE an array using PDO

Question

I'm creating a multi-step form for my users. They will be allowed to update any or all the fields. So, I need to send the values, check if they are set and if so, run an UPDATE . Here is what I have so far:

public function updateUser($firstName, $lastName, $streetAddress, $city, $state, $zip, $emailAddress, $industry, $password, $public = 1, 
    $phone1, $phone2, $website,){

    $updates = array(
        'firstName'             => $firstName,
        'lastName'              => $lastName,
        'streetAddress'         => $streetAddress,
        'city'                  => $city,
        'state'                 => $state,
        'zip'                   => $zip,
        'emailAddress'          => $emailAddress,
        'industry'              => $industry,
        'password'              => $password,
        'public'                => $public,
        'phone1'                => $phone1,
        'phone2'                => $phone2,
        'website'               => $website,

);

Here is my PDO (well, the beginning attempt)

    $sth = $this->dbh->prepare("UPDATE user SET firstName = "); //<---Stuck here
    $sth->execute();
    $result = $sth->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
    return $result; 

Basically, how can I create the UPDATE statement so it only updates the items in the array that are not NULL ?

I thought about running a foreach loop like this:

    foreach($updates as $key => $value) {
        if($value == NULL) {
            unset($updates[$key]);
        }
    }

but how would I write the prepare statement if I'm unsure of the values?

If I'm going about this completely wrong, please point me in the right direction. Thanks.

Answer 1

First of all, use array_filter to remove all NULL values:

$updates = array_filter($updates, function ($value) {
    return null !== $value;
});

Secondly, bind parameters, that makes your live a lot easier:

$query = 'UPDATE table SET';
$values = array();

foreach ($updates as $name => $value) {
    $query .= ' '.$name.' = :'.$name.','; // the :$name part is the placeholder, e.g. :zip
    $values[':'.$name] = $value; // save the placeholder
}

$query = substr($query, 0, -1).';'; // remove last , and add a ;

$sth = $this->dbh->prepare($query);

$sth->execute($values); // bind placeholder array to the query and execute everything

// ... do something nice :)

Answer 2

The below can be optimized:

$i = 0; $query = array();
foreach($updates as $key => $value) {
   if ($value != NULL) {
      $query[] = "{$key} = :param_{$i}";
      $i++;
   }
}

if (! empty($query)) {
  $finalQuery = implode(",", $query);
  $sth = $this->dbh->prepare('UPDATE user SET ' . $finalQuery);

  $i = 0; 
  foreach($updates as $key => $value) {
   if ($value != NULL) {
      $sth->bindParam(':param_'.$i, $value, PDO::PARAM_STR);
      $i++;
    }
  }
}