adding data to a sql column value

i came across an interesting challenge the other day that i found a rather simple solution to.

i was trying to update a SQL table to add information to the end of a column value. i simply wanted to add some text to the end of what was already stored there. i will be honest, i dont consider myself to be a mysql expert by any means and my first approach was to bring the data into php, add the extra text and then update the table.

wrong way:

$new_data = "some value";
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE id = 1";
$result = mysql_result($sql);
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
mysql_free_result($result);
$new_col = $row['column'] . $new_data;
$sql = "UPDATE table SET column = $new_col WHERE id = 1";
$result = mysql_query($sql)

with the use of mysql’s CONCAT function this can be simplified into much more efficient coding.

right way:

$new_data = "some value";
$sql = "UPDATE table SET column = CONCAT(column, $new_data) WHERE id = 1";
$result = mysql_query($sql);

thats it! 8 lines of code reduced to 2 lines. gotta love taking advantage of built in functionality!