CodexBloom - Programming Q&A Platform

Unexpected NULL values in MySQL insert when using PDO prepared statements in PHP 8.1

👀 Views: 100 đŸ’Ŧ Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-08
php pdo mysql prepared-statements database

I'm stuck trying to After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. I'm working with an scenario where my PDO prepared statements in PHP 8.1 are inserting NULL values into my MySQL database instead of the expected values. I have a function that takes an associative array and inserts it into a table, but for some reason, certain fields are getting NULL when they shouldn't be. Here's the code I'm using: ```php function insertData($pdo, $data) { $sql = "INSERT INTO users (name, email, age) VALUES (:name, :email, :age)"; $stmt = $pdo->prepare($sql); $stmt->execute([ ':name' => $data['name'], ':email' => $data['email'], ':age' => $data['age'] ]); } ``` When I call this function: ```php $data = [ 'name' => 'John Doe', 'email' => 'johndoe@example.com', 'age' => null // This is intentional to test how NULL is handled ]; insertData($pdo, $data); ``` In my database, I see that the `name` and `email` fields are inserted correctly, but the `age` field ends up being NULL instead of 0 or whatever default value I have set for it in the database schema. I checked my database table and confirmed that `age` is set to allow NULL values. I also tried using `isset()` around the `$data['age']` assignment, but it didn't solve the question. Additionally, I confirmed that the data being passed is as expected before the `execute()` call, and it shows `NULL` for `age` as expected. Is there a specific reason PDO might be interpreting my NULL value as such, or is there an alternative approach to ensure that a default value is inserted when the age is NULL? Any ideas or insights would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. I'm using Php 3.10 in this project.