Querying a Single Column in a Single Row with PDO

When dealing with SQL queries that target a specific column in a single row, it is often necessary to retrieve the value directly without the need for loops. To accomplish this with PDO, the fetchColumn() method comes in handy.

The syntax for fetchColumn() is:

$col_value = $stmt->fetchColumn([column_index]);

Here, $stmt is the PDOStatement object obtained from executing the SQL query. The column_index parameter specifies the column number to fetch the value from, with 0 representing the first column. However, since you are selecting only one column, it is unnecessary to specify the index.

In your case, the following line will retrieve the value of the selected column:

$col_value = $stmt->fetchColumn();

To ensure that rows are being returned by your query, it is crucial to properly bind the ':user' parameter and verify that the query is returning at least one row. Using fetchColumn() will assign the value of the single column directly to the $col_value variable, eliminating the need for loops or additional processing.