SQLSTATE[42000]: Syntax error or access violation: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax — PHP — PDO

I've looked through all the other StackOverflow (and google) posts with the same problem, but none seemed to address my problem.

I am using PDO and PHP.

My code:

$vals = array(
   ':from'    => $email,
   ':to'      => $recipient,
   ':name'    => $name,
   ':subject' => $subject,
   ':message' = >$message
);
print_r($vals);
try {
   $pdo = new PDOConfig();
   $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
   $sql = "SELECT * FROM messages WHERE `message` LIKE :message";
   $q = $pdo->prepare($sql);
   $q->execute(array(':message' => $vals[':message']));
   $resp = $q->fetchAll();

   foreach ($resp as $row) {
      throw new Exception('Please do not post the same message twice!');
   }

   $sql = "INSERT INTO messages (from, to, name, subject, message) VALUES (:from, :to, :name, :subject, :message)";
   $q = $pdo->prepare($sql);
   $q->execute($vals);
} 
catch(PDOException $e) {
   echo $e->getMessage();
}

and the first print_r gives

Array ( [:from]    => abc@gmail.com 
        [:to]      => lala@me.com 
        [:name]    => abc 
        [:subject] => abc 
        [:message] => abc )

which is expected (none are null)

but it outputs the error

SQLSTATE[42000]: Syntax error or access violation: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'from, to, name, subject, message) VALUES ('abc@gmail.com', 'lala@me.com' at line 1

No idea how to fix this. any ideas?

Answer

from is a keyword in SQL. You may not used it as a column name without quoting it. In MySQL, things like column names are quoted using backticks, i.e. `from`.

Personally, I wouldn't bother; I'd just rename the column.

PS. as pointed out in the comments, to is another SQL keyword so it needs to be quoted, too. Conveniently, the folks at drupal.org maintain a list of reserved words in SQL.