The code below demonstrates use of a placeholder for a field name (lastname) and this works. 
my $stmt= "SELECT * FROM users WHERE $searchfield = ? ORDER BY ? ASC";
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($stmt);
$sth->execute($searchterm, $searchfield);

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I guess you are referring to the ORDER BY ?.That would be prepared as ORDER BY 'lastname' meaning, "order by the word lastname", not the value of a column named lastname. You can prove this by trying

$sth->execute($searchterm, 'rubbish');

You may 'think' it is working since you are only retrieving one record. See single-quotes-in-mysql-order-by-clause

poj

In reply to Re^9: CGI Action call by poj
in thread CGI Action call by tultalk

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