fionbarr:

You've provided no context, so I'd suggest reading the rest of the information on the page to find out why it's used in two different ways. If I had to guess, I'd suspect that you meant $sth->bind_columns and that the author wanted to either insert a null in the first column (in the event that it's an insert or similar) or ignore the results of the first column (for a select).

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.