Can a prepared statement in MySQL contain PREPARE and EXECUTE?

[kuyawa]

I wanted to know if prepared statements can be used in the following way:\[code\] public static function GetCategoryItems($categoryId,$pageNum, &$rnum_pages) { $sql = 'SELECT DISTINCT COUNT(*) AS items_count FROM item I JOIN sub_category SC ON I.sub_category_id = SC.sub_category_id JOIN category C ON C.category_id = SC.category_id WHERE (I.location = 2 OR I.location = 3) AND C.category_id =' . (int)$categoryId ; $params = array (':category_id'=>$categoryId); $rnum_pages = Catalog::CalculatePages($sql,$params); $first_item = ($pageNum - 1) * ITEMS_PER_PAGE; $sql = "PREPARE stmt_name FROM 'SELECT I.item_id, I.name , I.price, I.discounted_price, I.thumbnail_photo FROM item I JOIN sub_category SC ON I.sub_category_id = SC.sub_category_id JOIN category C ON C.category_id = SC.category_id WHERE C.category_id = ? LIMIT ?,? ' ; SET @p1 = categoryId; SET @p2 = firstItem; SET @p3 = items_per_page; EXECUTE stmt_name USING @p1,@p2,@p3; " return DatabaseConnection::GetAll($sql,$params); }\[/code\]I am actually getting an error :\[code\] ERRNO: 256 TEXT: SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error\[/code\]Can anyone help please?