PDO::Query() returning false

Question

I\'m attempting to learn and use PDO in PHP. I\'ve come across an issue in the query() method.

I\'m attempting to use $sth = $db->query(\"SELECT * FROM titl

Answer 1

Use PDO's errorinfo() function to find out why.

if( ! $sth = $db->query("SELECT * FROM titles ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1") ) {
  die(var_export($db->errorinfo(), TRUE));
}

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Late Update

In the interest of making my old answers better, setting PDO to throw exceptions on error is far more manageable than checking every function return.

$dbh = new PDO($connstr, $user, $pwd);
$dbh->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);

Or, more concisely:

$dbh = new PDO($connstr, $user, $pwd, [PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION]);