Is there a way to make a param optional in PHP PDO?

Question

Say I have this query:

$qry = 'SELECT p.id FROM products p 
        WHERE p.type = :type AND p.parent = :parent';

If I wanted to make "type" optional then the only way I know how to do it would be to do something like this:

$qry = 'SELECT p.id FROM products p 
        WHERE p.parent = :parent';

if(isset($type))
{
    $qry .= 'AND p.type = :type';
}

Is this the best way? I am wondering if there is a way I can keep it like the original, and use some sort of parameter to indicate that it is optional... For example if $type = "*" then pull all types.

Whats the best way to do this?

Answer 1

You might want to check for blank values as well

if(isset($type) && $type != '') {
    $qry .= 'AND p.type = :type';
}

Answer 2

Theoretically this might work:

 AND :type IN (NULL, p.type)

Not sure about the speediness. But it puts your query logic completely into the database.