PDO multiple queries with 2 different tables

Question

I joined this 2 tables and dropped the user_id afterwards. I am defining the user_id elsewhere in my code based on my session/cookies and I do not want to return this value as a global. Is there a more compact or elegant way to write this:

public function test($user_id)
{
    $stmt = $this->conn->prepare("CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE `temp_tb`
                                  SELECT a.*, b.token
                                  FROM $this->tableName a
                                  LEFT JOIN `requests` b
                                  ON a.$this->user_id = b.uid
                                  WHERE $this->user_id=:user_id ");
    $stmt->execute(array(":user_id"=>$user_id));
    $stmt = $this->conn->prepare("ALTER TABLE `temp_tb` DROP $this->user_id ");
    $stmt->execute();
    $stmt = $this->conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM `temp_tb` ");
    $stmt->execute();
    return $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
}

Thank you!

Answer 1

Well, I hardly understand the whole affair but from what I can get about it

$sql = "SELECT a.*, b.token FROM $this->tableName a
        LEFT JOIN `requests` b ON a.$this->user_id = b.uid
        WHERE $this->user_id=:user_id";
$this->conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute(array(":user_id"=>$user_id));
$row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
unset($row[$this->user_id]);
return $row;