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how to query and edit Password field

i have a simple table like this: name, address, email, password.
i insert records using password encryption like so ... PASSWORD('$password')
the password is "test" and it looks something like this "378b243e220ca493" when it is stored in mysql

i have an edit page and when i query a record the password field is displayed "378b243e220ca493". i want it to display "test" instead so that i can edit it.

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gamebits

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Richard Davis

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soapergem

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tolgaong

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soapergem

So what tolgaong is saying here is that instead of using the MySQL function PASSWORD(), you should use the PHP function encrypt() that he just defined in his comment. So you would make your queries like this:

"SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = '$username' AND PASSWORD = '" . encrypt($key, $password) . "'";

Then you can actually retrieve this data and decrypt it using the PHP function decrypt() that he defined above. You could decode passwords using a query like this:

"SELECT password FROM users WHERE [something something something]"

And then with the MySQL result, you could get the password like this:

$password = decrypt($key, $rowset[0]['password']);

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But all-in-all, that's very complicated. To top things off, as tolgaong has already astutely pointed out, you'd have to make sure that your webserver supports the mcrypt_ functions in PHP. Why do you need to decrypt passwords anyway? It's MUCH simpler to just use one-way encryption and then forget about them.