Should I use wpdb prepare?

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I’m new to SQL and am wondering if I need to use wpdb->prepare for the following query to a table I’ve created

global $wpdb;
$tablename = $wpdb->prefix . "my_custom_table";
$sql = "SELECT * FROM " . $tablename . " ORDER BY date_created DESC";
$resulst = $wpdb->get_results( $sql , ARRAY_A );

Do I need to use prepare here? How would I do that?

Cheers

3

It’s best practice to always use prepare but the main use of it is to prevent against SQL injection attacks, and since there is no input from the users/visitors or they can’t effect the query then that is not an issue in your current example.

But like I said before it’s best practice to use it and once you start using it you never stop, so in your example you can use it like so:

global $wpdb;
$tablename = $wpdb->prefix . "my_custom_table";
$sql = $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT * FROM %s ORDER BY date_created DESC",$tablename );
$results = $wpdb->get_results( $sql , ARRAY_A );

to read more about how to use it head to the codex

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