PHP: How to select single value from single row in MySQL without using array for results

Question

I am new to PHP and have a really basic question.

If I know the result of a query is only a single value (cell) from a single row in MySQL how can I simplify the below without having to go through an array of results and without increasing the risk of SQL injection ?

In the example below I would just need to echo a single email as the result of the query.

I found a couple of posts suggesting different approaches with fetch_field for this but I am not sure what is the best way here since some of these seem to be pretty old or deprecated now.

My PHP:

$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT email FROM Users WHERE userName = ? LIMIT 1");
$stmt->bind_param('s', $userName);
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->get_result();
$arr = $result->fetch_assoc();
echo $arr["email"];

Many thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can avoid caring what the column is called by just doing this:

<?php
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT email FROM Users WHERE userName = ? LIMIT 1");
$stmt->bind_param('s', $userName);
$stmt->execute();

$email = $stmt->get_result()->fetch_object()->email;
echo $email;