[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #4826: Change to wpdb::get_col() breaks documented behavior

[WordPress Trac]

#4826: Change to wpdb::get_col() breaks documented behavior
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 Reporter:  mdawaffe  |       Owner:  anonymous            
     Type:  defect    |      Status:  new                  
 Priority:  normal    |   Milestone:  2.3                  
Component:  General   |     Version:                       
 Severity:  normal    |    Keywords:  has-patch 2nd-opinion
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 [5858] [5861]  Change get_col(), get_row(), and get_results() to return
 null if given an empty argument.

 According to the documentation, get_col() should be able to be called with
 an empty argument in the following situation.

 {{{
 $a = get_col( "SELECT a, b FROM table" );
 $b = get_col( '', 1 );
 }}}

 This is almost never needed since get_results() is almost always more
 efficient for grabbing data from multiple columns.  Very ocassionally,
 this use of get_col() ''is'' more efficient and should still be supported.
 Otherwise, it will be necessary to write a wrapper function around
 get_results() to achieve the same thing.  Since core WP does not make use
 of this type of call to get_col(), any plugin that does will have to write
 their own wrapper functions for the few cases where the old get_col() is
 more efficient than get_results().

 I cannot think of when it would be useful for get_row() or get_results()
 to act in the old manner.  It's only in the transformation of the data
 from row-centric to column-centric that this issue occurs.

 Attached is a patch that reverts get_col() and fixes a PHP warning.

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Ticket URL: <http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/4826>
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