“Invalid parameter number: parameter was not defined” Inserting data

I’ve been using Yii’s active record pattern for a while. Now, my project needs to access a different database for one small transaction. I thought the Yii’s DAO would be good for this. However, I’m getting a cryptic error.

CDbCommand failed to execute the SQL statement: SQLSTATE[HY093]: Invalid parameter number: parameter was not defined

Here is my code:

public function actionConfirmation
{
    $model_person = new TempPerson();

    $model = $model_person->find('alias=:alias',array(':alias'=>$_GET['alias']));
    $connection=Yii::app()->db2;
            $sql = "INSERT INTO users (username, password, ssn, surname
                    , firstname, email, city, country) 
                    VALUES(:alias, :password, :ssn, :surname
                    , :firstname, :email, :city, :country)";
            $command=$connection->createCommand($sql);
            $command->bindValue(":username", $model->alias);
            $command->bindValue(":password", substr($model->ssn, -4,4));
            $command->bindValue(":ssn", $model->ssn);
            $command->bindValue(":surname", $model->lastName);
            $command->bindValue(":firstname", $model->firstName);
            $command->bindValue(":email", $model->email);
            $command->bindValue(":city", $model->placeOfBirth);
            $command->bindValue(":country", $model->placeOfBirth);
            $command->execute();
            $this->render('confirmation',array('model'=>$model));
}

This constructs the following query (as seen on the application log):

INSERT INTO users (username, password, ssn, surname, firstname, email
                   , city, country) 
VALUES(:alias, :password, :ssn, :surname, :firstname, :email, :city, :country);

FYI $model->placeOfBirth is supposed to be in both city and county values. That’s not a typo (just a silly thing I have to do).

Answer

Just to provide an answer – because this error is pretty common – here are a few causes:

1) The :parameter name does not match the bind by mistake (typo?). This is what happened here. He has :alias in the SQL statement, but bound :username. So when the param binding was attempted, Yii/PDO could not find :username in the sql statement, meaning it was “one parameter short” and threw an error.

2) Completely forgetting to add the bindValue() for a parameter. This is easier to do in Yii other constructs like $critera, where you have an array or params ($criteria->params = array(':bind1'=>'test', ':bind2'=>'test)).

3) Weird conflicts with CDataProvider Pagination and/or Sorting when using together and joins. There is no specific, easy way to characterize this, but when using complex queries in CDataProviders I have had weird issues with parameters getting dropped and this error occurring.

One very helpful way to troubleshoot these issues in Yii is to enable parameter logging in your config file. Add this to your db array in your config file:

'enableParamLogging'=>true,

And make sure the CWebLogRoute route is set up in your log section. This will print out the query that gave and error, and all of the parameters it was attempting to bind. Super helpful!