The Sum Of All Rows: Use PHP or MySQL to Do The Math?

[Firefox Wins]

Which is better / faster / less server load* for adding up the value of all rows in one field:
*Generally speaking: not knowing how many rows.

Use Mysql, into a single $result variable:

Code:

SELECT sum( data_field ) FROM `somewhere`

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or
Something similar to this*
*html table optional, just asking about the PHP part

PHP Code:

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<table border=1> <?php // source = http://www.wellho.net/forum/Writing-PHP/math-in-php-mysql.html $DBhost = "localhost"; $DBuser = "mymy"; $DBpass = "knotpass"; $DBName = "yummydata"; $table = "fred"; $sum = 0; mysql_connect($DBhost,$DBuser,$DBpass) or die("Unable to connect to database"); mysql_select_db("$DBName") or die("Unable to select database $DBName"); $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table"); while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) { print ("<tr><td>$row[0]</td><td>$row[1]</td></tr>"); $sum += $row[1]; } ?> </table> <?php print "Total is $sum"; ?>

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• Note: I almost decided MySQL would obviously be faster, and deleted the post, but... Is PHP possibly much better for calculations, while MySQL is optimized for i/o?
  

ty ZB/Y ...and / or anyone else.

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

As you guessed, MySQL will always be faster.
PHP, being a fully fledged scripting language is more versatile.

[Firefox Wins]

Well it works  

PHP Code:

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<?php // db connect $sql = "SELECT sum( points ) FROM `mybb_users` "; $result=mysql_query($sql) or die('Error query failed'); $row = mysql_fetch_array( $result ); echo $row[0]; mysql_close($link); ?>

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A simple:  echo $result; doesn't work...
I wasn't expecting to use 'mysql_fetch_array' to finish off this time, but it does work. Is there a  better way to turn the "sum()" type of ( $result ) into a usable variable?

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

mysql_query returns a resource, if you look at the documentation for it.
You need to fetch data from this resource using mysql_fetch_array or similar, as you have done.